How MWCC’s “SOS” Program Aims to Provide Students with Access to Aid in Times of Hardship
By Elysian Alder | Assistant Editor
Research shows that offering peer mentoring programs within schools can lead to increased retention rates, decreased stress levels among students, and an improved rate of academic success.
Peer mentoring typically refers to a paired relationship between students, with one being a volunteer mentor and the other being a student in need of assistance. While many peer mentoring programs tend to focus on academic assistance alone, MWCC, however, takes it a necessary step further with the Students Serving Our Students program (‘SOS’ for short).
The SOS program was proposed in 2012 by Human Services student, Bryan Sanderson, who said in an article for telegram.com, “On Orientation Day, Mr. Asquino was giving a speech and then he paused and said that statistics show that half of the people in the room would not graduate.” Although he was reportedly shocked by that statistic, Sanderson soon found that the substandard work ethic that he was seeing from his classmates supported it. Students were struggling, and it wasn’t just from a lack of wanting to do the work, either.
“A lot of our students were either homeless, or dealing with hunger issues, dealing with transportation issues, didn’t have computers or internet at home— all of these other things that were keeping them from doing their work,” said Shelley Nicholson, director of the Center for Civic Learning and Community Engagement at the Mount, “It wasn’t that they didn’t want to do the work.”
And so, the Students Serving Our Students program was born from a great need. When faced with the fact that for struggling students, the importance of prioritizing academic success pales in comparison to the importance of being able to have access to basic life necessities such as food, housing, and other essentials, as suggested by Nicholson, SOS aims to be the stepping stone to remedy that for those affected students, by “offering a hand-up, not a hand-out,” as Nicholson would say.
“For example, a student comes and they say, ‘Listen, I’m struggling academically, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on, and I can’t meet my basic needs, so how am I going to deal with school?’ And so we help them figure out: Do you need immediate housing? Do you need to be in a shelter? How can we help you line up an apartment? Do you need food? Transportation?” said Nicholson, “Research shows, and our experience shows, that with these kinds of issues that students tend to be more comfortable sharing them with their peers rather than with someone that they may see as a source of power, like a faculty member.”
In 2015-2016, Nicholson and the rest of the SOS volunteers and faculty began to notice a trend: regardless of what other issues students came to them for assistance with, many of them were food insecure and unable to provide nutritional meals for themselves or their family on a regular basis. “And that’s where the idea for the food pantry came from, which is a part of SOS, and that was opened in 2017.” said Nicholson, “It’s been going strong; we’ve expanded to the Leominster campus and we just received a grant of over $170,000 to allow us to hire what we’re calling a Basic Needs Support Specialist, a full-time person to coordinate the food pantry and other SOS responsibilities.”
Despite this “official” staff position in the works, Nicholson made it clear: it’s important to stress that the SOS program is, “It was a student idea, and it has always been student run and student led. And that’s not going to change.”
Sue Meagher, aide for the Center for Civic Learning & Community Engagement, reinforced the importance of the students when it comes to the service. “We’ve got an incredible group of students now, who are involved the entire time. They’re just so welcoming and helpful, and you can just see that there’s no stigma when you walk in the door.”
As for the responsibilities of these student leaders, student interns, and student work-study students, Nicholson explained, “We ask that volunteers do at least 3 hours a week. We have two locations where we have peer mentors. We always have someone on duty in the food pantry, because obviously we want to keep that open and accessible, but sometimes we know that students have really complex issues and confidentiality might be nice for them, so we have a private office out of the Brewer Center, where we can shut the door and have a more in-depth conversation about whatever is going on.”
And the process is seamless from there, with each mentor and volunteer trained and ready to help. “Mentors have a sheet that prompts them to ask questions about what the students need. If they don’t get food stamps, which are called SNAP… if they’re parents, and they don’t get WIC, stuff like that, we find that out right away and we can help them apply for that. The students can help them with that; by asking these questions and finding out what resources they’re already involved in, both in the community and on-campus, we know pretty quickly what they’re eligible for,” Nicholson said, outlining the first major part of being a peer mentor. Secondarily, though, as it pertains to the food pantry, Nicholson said, “If their shift also entails being in the food pantry, we train everybody to be able to help people in the pantry when they walk in the door, and help them shop, but also how to restock inventory, so that they have a bit of something to do if they have downtime. We have a training manual, we have a procedural manual, even the training that we give to new students was created by the students themselves.”
Since its inception 10 years ago, the Students Serving Our Students program has flourished beyond. Nicholson and Meagher both insisted that the SOS program is always looking for new volunteers, anybody who wants to donate to the program, whether it be food, time, or exposure for the program, and they want students as involved and present as possible.
For additional information about volunteering or receiving assistance, the SOS Office is housed in Room 152 on the MWCC Gardner campus, and may be available by appointment on the Leominster campus. Their contact number is 978-630-9255, and the food pantry can be contacted at foodpantry@mwcc.mass.edu to schedule an appointment or learn more.
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