Editor’s note: This article first appeared on page 26 of the April 5, 2018, edition of the Battle Creek Shopper News. Click here to view the edition online.
While Kellogg Community College student nurses are learning how to care for others, fellow student Isaac Lake is taking care of them.
Lake, who is also a student nurse at KCC, is the caretaker of the Nurses in Need Open Door Pantry, a food and supply shelf in the room 202 of the Roll Health and Administration Building on the College’s North Avenue campus in Battle Creek, where the Nursing Program is based. Donated goods are available for free for student nurses who are in need of them.
If the door to the room is unlocked, any KCC Nursing student can take what they need from the shelf, and anyone can donate items.
Nurses in Need started in 2015 when some KCC Foundation Gold Key Scholars in the program found out a classmate was homeless, KCC Nursing professor Elizabeth Fluty said. Nursing Education Director Tonie McMaster saw something similar at a conference, and the pantry was created.
Lake, also a Gold Key Scholar at KCC, was looking for a project to fulfill a requirement for that scholarship and expanding the shelf was it.
“I thought it would be really good for my honors contract to do something: change it, improve it, get it out there,” Lake said. “So this is what it is.”
Diapers and other baby items are needed and usually go fast, Fluty said. Snack foods are another popular choice. Hygiene items and more nutritious foods such as canned goods and boxed meals are also welcome.
“I come and check on it once in a while and donate things of my own that I have,” Lake said. “Laundry soap, and snacks and stuff. I make sure I tell my classmates about it.”
Study Nursing at KCC
Applications for KCC’s Fall 2018 Full-Time Nursing Program are available now. For more information, visit www.kellogg.edu/nursing.
Pictured above, KCC Nursing professor Elizabeth Fluty, left, stands with Nursing student Isaac Lake by the Nurses in Need Open Door Pantry on campus in Battle Creek. The pantry is supplied by the KCC community to provide food, hygiene and other items to KCC Nursing students in need.