News
Food Drive Response Overwhelming
Published on November 17, 2025 - 9 a.m.
The overwhelming response brought Southwestern Michigan College Student Success Coach Kelley McCarthy to tears.
“I cried every day this week because people just kept bringing stuff and asking what else we needed,” she said.
With Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps in limbo during the prolonged federal government shutdown, First Year Experience (FYE) and the Tutoring and Learning Center (TLC) turned to SMC’s faculty and staff for an Oct. 30-Nov. 7 food drive of non-perishable items.
An internal announcement sent the appeal campuswide.
SMC has a food pantry, the Road Runner Kitchen, based at Fred L. Mathews Library, but “it can only give out eight items per student per week,” McCarthy said.
“We talked with Colleen (Welsch, director of library services and co-advisor of Sigma Psi Chapter, Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), the international honor society) about our idea to add to what they were doing and she gave us her blessing. The faculty and staff showed up! We had over 2,000 items! Students had lists and circled 10 things. We filled the bags and handed them off.”
“They didn’t have to put their names,” McCarthy said. “They just came in and picked it up. We served 110 students in two days. Our community did a great job.”
By Nov. 12, FYE’s office in the David C. Briegel Building resembled a warehouse full of canned vegetables, fruit, beans, tuna, chicken, stews, soups, chili and pasta meals such as ravioli and SpaghettiOs, tomato sauce, rice, pasta, macaroni and cheese, instant oatmeal packets, granola bars and chili or taco seasoning packets.
It was not McCarthy’s first food drive, but her third, including two in Valparaiso, Ind.
McCarthy became student success coach in June.
“I have one-on-one conversations with students about goal-setting, time management, I do a lot of motivational coaching,” she said. “We talk about how they’re structuring their studying.”
McCarthy might sound like a high school guidance counselor, except “I don’t work with putting students into their classes. That’s academic advising. I’m an extra resource. If students need tutoring, I refer them to (TLC). I can walk them over and help set up an appointment.”
McCarthy spent four years working in admissions for a Chicago beauty school. She worked in residential life and housing for five years at St. Mary’s College, and at Valparaiso University.
McCarthy attended a private Catholic women’s college in Hartford, Conn., the University of Saint Joseph, to study psychology. She also holds a master’s degree in student affairs with a concentration in conflict resolution.
