Kalika Valentine-Erickson/ Winonan

The Student Parent Support Initiative (SPSI) is a group in which student parents can meet others who are attending school while they are pregnant, parenting or both.

SPSI began in the fall of 2011 and is funded by the Minnesota Department of Health through July of 2017.

Debra Hammel, coordinator for SPSI, said the goal of the organization was for student parents to meet one another and provide a number of resources through school and the community.

“The group provides not only academic support, but also refers them to campus and community resources,” she said. “Emergency funds are available to help students in times of need for such things as childcare, textbooks, utilities, housing or even transportation.”

The group holds lunches for mothers on Monday and Thursday of every week from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the River Room in Kryzsko Commons. There is also a lunch for fathers on Wednesdays of each week at Mugby Junction, located across from campus on Huff Street. These meetings allow parents to eat lunch and converse with other parents who are also taking college courses.

Pang Carter, a sophomore accounting major at Winona State and mother of two, has been a member of SPSI for a little under two months.

“It’s helpful to know that there are other students who are parents, and the support I have received has helped my educational experience to be better,” Pang said.

Along with the lunches, SPSI finds other opportunities for student parents to support each other.

The group holds family dinners once a month, where student parents can bring their significant others and children to Winona State Children’s Center for dinner and a speaker.

The speaker typically talks about a theme such as bedtime routines or encouraging childhood literacy. While parents listen to the speaker and talk with their fellow student parents, the children play in one the childcare center rooms and are watched by childcare center employees.

SPSI also hosts biannual clothing exchanges, where parents can bring clothing to donate as well as take clothing for their children. No money is exchanged, and a parent does not need to bring clothing in order to receive clothing.

“We love the exchange idea,” Hammel said. “Get rid of what you don’t need anymore, and then people take what they need.”

Last week, on Oct. 14 and 15, SPSI held their third annual clothing exchange.

Elisi Smith-Waller, a senior elementary education major and mother of two, has been a member of SPSI for two and a half years and said she appreciates the group’s clothing exchange and the sense of community through the support of other student parents.

“I like that it’s a way for us to support each other,” she said. “I don’t need the clothes that were donated. I might have gotten a little bit of money from selling to Once Upon a Child, but I’d rather bring it here and support another student parent. I’m glad to have that support in my direction, too.”

SPSI provides support and friendship for parenting students, but the main goal is more than this.

Hammel said, “The initiative’s ultimate goal is student retention: to support parents so they can succeed in school and go on to graduate from college. Our students graduate—we have seen so many come through all the way to graduation; our group carried them through.