Extending the Love of our Pharmacy Phamily to Brighten the Holiday Season

By: Markie Heideman, Content Marketing Manager

At the College of Pharmacy, we affectionately call ourselves a “phamily,” and each holiday season, our faculty and staff extend that warmth and comradery to those in the community who need it most. Through the Volunteers of America: Michigan Adopt a Family program, the College is able to provide gifts, meals and monetary contributions to families and seniors during the holiday season. 

In fact, this past December, College of Pharmacy staff and faculty raised their largest number of gifts and monetary donations yet – with a record 95 employees participating in the program. 

“All of our neighbors deserve to feel the magic of the holidays and we are so grateful the College of Pharmacy made that possible for these families,” remarked David Bann, Vice President of Development and Communications for Volunteers of America: Michigan. It’s no wonder you are known as ‘The Leaders and Best!’ Thank you for making the holiday season so special for the people you adopted.”

During the first year of Adopt a Family, the College was able to adopt one family and one senior. That number increased over the years and by 2024, we were able to take on three families and three seniors – ensuring they had everything they needed to have a joyous holiday season. 

This year, the College provided each senior with a $100 gift card for their holiday meal along with gifts and cash, while each family received cash for their holiday meals and gifts. 

Tina Mead, Senior Applications Programmer at the College, spearheads this effort alongside Kristy Paarman-Boland and Kelley Archer. The three help coordinate the gift drive, deliver the gifts and spend time with the recipients – many of them seeing their company and time as the biggest gift of all. For these three, seeing the look on the faces of the recipients is the best part of the experience.  

“It gives you goosebumps,” said Mead. “It’s so fulfilling to see their faces. I think it says a lot about the College.” 

Mead, Paarman-Boland and Archer wish every faculty and staff member could participate in delivering the gifts and spending time with the recipients. These gifts often bring tears to the eyes of these families and seniors, and their own. 

“Our faculty and staff have big hearts and don’t “just” donate money; they are sincerely interested and invest time in the stories of these families, genuinely caring about making their holiday special by picking out personalized gifts for them, and that’s an amazing reflection of who the College is” states Paarman-Boland.

It is efforts to give back to the community like this that spotlight the philanthropic and generous spirit of the College staff and faculty – a pride point for College of Pharmacy Dean Vicki Ellingrod. 

“This is a prime example of who we are as a College,” said Ellingrod. “We know that we could not do what we do without the support of the community around us, and this effort is just one small way we can give back to that community. I’m consistently overwhelmed by the generosity shown by our staff and faculty, but never surprised because I know how big the hearts are of people in our buildi