Make an Impact: Once a Spartan, always a Spartan

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - When a gunman killed three students and left five suffering life-threatening injuries, Spartan alumni helped those in need.

Related: MSU offers mental health support resources following shooting

Bob Ulrich, president of Mid-Michigan Spartans, said his alumni club had three questions when tragedy swept through the campus.

“How can we help? What can we do? How can we express our feelings?”

First on the list was providing box lunches from Panera Bread to the Michigan Department of Public Safety. Ulrich then contacted other Spartan alumni clubs across the country, and the Spartan Club in Fort Meyers responded.

“They had a connection with one of the kids that was in intensive care because she lived in Florida, and they reached out to me and said, ‘We’d like to provide lunches to the nurses in intensive care that are taking care of our students,’” Ulrich said.

Alumni worked with each other to provide food to the intensive care staff at Sparrow Hospital, and more than 50,000 Mid-Michigan Spartan alumni played a role in healing events like Spartan Sunday and candlelight vigils.

“It’s touched all of us in so many different ways that I think it’s going to take different ways to have us all come through this together,” Ulrich said. “And we will come through it together. It’s going to be a long, hard haul but in the weeks and months to come I think if we are working together as a Spartan nation, we can do this.”

News 10 will host a phone bank to support the Spartan Strong Fund, which was set up to address the immediate needs of students affected by the mass shooting. The telethon will be on Tuesday. More information can be found here.

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