By Drew Johnson
Lately I have been struck by how lucky South County Community Services is to have so many great partnerships with other organizations in our community, especially since we recently had a very successful Postal Food Drive working once again with the Vicksburg Post Office (who were GREAT!). One of the best things about working together is that we can all toot each other’s horns ((or gas each other up, to use a more timely phrase). So today I am going to take a break from talking about SCCS and brag on some of the great people we work with!
First on my list has to be Generous Hands: our partners, friends, and landlords. You’d think that would be a complicated relationship, but actually, we work great together! Although we had partnered on plenty of things beforehand, we officially moved in together about six years ago with the help of the Vicksburg Foundation (more on them later!). Since then, both organizations have grown substantially, with Generous Hands even taking on buying our building when it came up for sale. We work together on holiday parties, the Back to School Bonanza, and coordinate lots of other programming together. Generous Hands currently supports 356 school-aged kids a month with healthy food and other support to make sure that they have healthy, easy options for food at home.
Speaking of which, we have been working with Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes to provide food to families in the South County for what feels like forever. They deliver food to us (for free!) every week and end up providing the bulk of the food that we give out. They are also great partners in other things—they run the monthly food distributions at Vicksburg United Methodist Church and during COVID helped us get connected with alternative food sources. They are also great people—in my experience, meetings are always focused on how the proposed changes affect their clients and things that they can do to make their services better.
We get funding from a variety of sources, but I’m not sure how many people realize how lucky we are to have the Vicksburg Foundation here in our community. Not only do they provide start-up funding for important projects, but they also work with us to ensure that our programs are sustainable and well-planned. Over the past few years, they have supported us in giving out Farmer’s Market Vouchers with our food pantry, provided all of the initial funding for the South County Senior Center, and funded our holiday food deliveries among other projects. The United Ways of South Central Michigan and the Kalamazoo Foundation have also been extremely helpful in maintaining stable funding for our operations and infrastructure.
I am beginning to run out of space and I still have so many to go! I have to mention Vicksburg United Methodist Church for welcoming us into their space and working with us to develop and run the South County Senior Center. It has been a busy year over there and we deeply appreciate the support and flexibility that you all have shown. Speaking of churches, The Bridge and Ada Bible Church work together on a monthly day of service in our community and have been extremely generous with their time—they clean our building once a month and also work with some of our senior clients to provide yard work.
We also partner with several agencies in Kalamazoo to bring their programming to South County: Area Agency on Aging, the Veteran Services Office, and the Health Department come down for outreach on a regular basis; Milestone Senior Services works with us on a couple of ongoing food programs; and we have a close referral relationship with Integrated Services of Kalamazoo.
Of course, there are more places and people who we work with: Chapman Memorial Church, St Martin’s, Eagles Nest Food Pantry, The Dome in Schoolcraft, and I’m sure many others. I only wish that I could give everyone the space that they deserve—suffice it to say, we appreciate you and we love working with you!
Isn’t South County great???
Drew Johnson lives in Kalamazoo and is the Director at South County Community Services. He has a small quarter acre homestead with chickens, bees, and hops (and more!), a wonderful wife, and three energetic children. He can be reached at 649-2901 or ajohnson@southcountycs.com
For more information on South County Community Services, please check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/southcountycs or our website: southcountycs.com.
