This spring, the Ross Medical Education Center Kalamazoo, Michigan campus was the site of a food drive! Led by Teressa Foster, the campus’ morning Office Assistant, the Kalamazoo students, faculty, and staff collected five boxes of food for the Michigan Avenue Pantry, known as Loaves and Fishes, which is housed in the First Baptist Church in Downtown Kalamazoo. The students at the Kalamazoo campus were excited about helping and were very generous in giving. Some of them brought in items every week of the month-long drive and said that they wished they could have done more.
After the drive was over, Lori Lewis of Loaves and Fishes and Teressa Foster loaded the donations into their cars and delivered them to the pantry. The efforts of the Kalamazoo campus were well received as the pantry was in short supply of food, especially low on their normal amounts of high protein foods such as tuna, peanut butter, and soups which caused all of the pantries to be low in their supplies. The campus’ donation helped to fill the shelves at the Michigan Avenue Pantry.
With our donations, Loaves and Fishes was able to serve 20 families that they, due to the short supply, would have otherwise been forced to turn away,” shared Jade Woodridge, Office Assistant. When the students learned of how much of an impact they had made, they were very happy that their small contribution made such a difference in someone’s life. Many of the students at Ross Kalamazoo have small children, and they could not imagine a family in their community not being able to feed their kids. They were humbled by this, and some voiced how appreciative they are of what they have. “Many of the students asked if the campus could do a food drive again soon so that they could continue to help out with food needs in our community. Job well done, Ross Kalamazoo!”