For two weeks last November, the Ross Medical Education Center Kalamazoo, Michigan campus spread a little warmth by volunteering as Salvation Army Bell Ringers. Organized by the campus’ morning Office Assistant, Teressa Foster, students, faculty, and staff members signed up to ring the Salvation Army’s iconic golden bells at various locations in their local area on West Main Street. It was a wonderful experience for all that were able to participate and helped to bring in the holiday season to those in their community as well.
In addition to serving as bell ringers, through a good majority of both November and December, the Ross team worked to support their community in other ways as well. During the better part of those two months, the Ross Kalamazoo campus became the site of the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program. According to the Salvation Army, “millions of children in America will go without Christmas gifts because their parents can’t afford them.” That motivated those at the Kalamazoo campus to want to do something to help.
To find out the best way to bring some holiday spirit to their community, Teressa reached out to the local Salvation Army once again with the hope of making the Christmas holiday magical for children in need. She was told about the Angel Tree program. This program gives anonymous donors the opportunity to “adopt” children by selecting an angel tag from the site’s Christmas tree where each tag contains the gender and age of the child. New, unwrapped gifts are then place under the site’s tree with the angel tag attached to be collected by Salvation Army. In a matter of just three weeks, Ross students, faculty, and staff collected over 100 toys, making the season brighter for the children who will receive these gifts and all who participated.