Students attending Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Shawano can get help and counseling for far more than just academics.
Resources are available at the campus to help students connect with community food pantries, housing and utility support, transportation help, legal services and more.
The NWTC food pantry, Shared Harvest, recently changed its model to more closely match the college’s emphasis on educating students to utilize community resources.
About a year and a half ago, Joe Richter, NWTC manager of student involvement, was tasked with looking at Shared Harvest to determine if there was a way to make improvements to the program.
“Where we are today is quite a bit different than where we were even just six months ago,” Richter said.
In the past, his office provided full bags of groceries for students that would last them an entire week. The types of food included dry pasta, jars of spaghetti sauce, canned fruits and vegetables. Richter said that was NWTC’s model about six months ago.
“Over the past year, in talking with other folks at the college, and talking with other individuals in the communities that we serve, I made a decision to look at changing our model,” Richter said.
“What we have right now, still called Shared Harvest, we are very much in the business of ensuring that our students have access to nutrition and the calories that will give them energy, but rather than focus on giving students bags of groceries, that are filled with foods that require them to boil water or heat on a stove, we’re narrowing our focus on getting students the nutrition and energy that they need to have a successful day at campus.”
The bags of food given to students in need have been replaced with grab and go types of food that they can eat on campus.
“There’s just so much need out there, and food is one pretty big part of that,” Richter said. “We’re really grateful to be able to help our students with this, and we’re definitely grateful for the community partners that join us.”
Richter said that the college is relying more on community partners, not just for food pantries, but for the number of resources available to assist its students.
“Rather than duplicate those community services, we are able to focus on what we do best, educating our students,” he said.
Educating the NWTC students on what resources are available in the community is a priority for the college. This is what the college is accomplishing with the new Shared Harvest model.
Richter said that United Way’s 211 resource for essential community services connects people with locally available help. It’s app-based and web-based and is one of the community resources the college is actively encouraging students to use. The website is https://211wisconsin.communityos.org.
NWTC has identified many resources available for its students, including on-campus, virtually and within the community.
Assisting students in need to locate those resources is a team of NWTC resource navigators. Students who need help can reach out to the resource navigators to locate a solution that works for the student.
The resource navigators meet with students to identify the needs. They may refer students to an internal department in the college or to connections within the community.
Michelle Runge, student engagement specialist at the Shawano campus, works closely with Richter to identify how to help students with needs.
Runge also works with Kris Bahr, administrative support specialist in Shawano, to coordinate food items that are available to students in the classrooms and in common areas of the campus, the grab and go model.
Food is also kept in the freezer and refrigerator in the lounge for the students. For example, Uncrustables is one of the things kept on hand.
“This is in case a student may need something for lunch,” Bahr said.
Special food days mirror when they are held at the Green Bay campus, so that the Shawano students can get the same experience as at the main site. These take place about once a month.
Runge prepares a calendar that shows when meals will be held on-site for the students.
Bahr said, as an example, “OK, today we’re going to have walking tacos.”
“We’ll make up a batch of walking tacos, and anyone who is a student can come in and get those,” Bahr said.
The food preparation in Shawano is done by staff and faculty in the building.
There is a process that Richter has in place for a student attending the Shawano campus. In the case where a Shawano staff member identifies an emergent student food insecurity need, there is still a way to relay that information to Richter’s office. The student involvement office will then put together a food package and send it to Shawano.