For the second year in a row, Lake Michigan College has received Gold-Level certification from the Michigan Veterans Affairs Office for its efforts to ensure veterans enrolled in classes have the support they need.

LMC spokesperson Jennifer Shoemaker tells us the college values its veterans and wants to help them in any way it can.

“We have one woman who specifically takes care of all of this, and she’s sort of their go-to person,” Shoemaker said. “If they need something, they can go to her — it’s Becky French — they can go to her, and she can take care of making sure that they get the support that they need or tutoring or any of that.”

The college helps veterans secure scholarships and has a program that can get them laptops. It even has a special lounge for veterans.

“Sometimes it’s just nice for them to have other people who have been where they were. So just having that lounge specifically for them where they can chill between classes, they can study, whatever they need to be, they can grab a snack.”

Shoemaker says the state veterans office evaluates colleges in seven categories when determining their level of certification. They include having a process to identify veteran students, maintaining a veteran-specific website, and offering veteran-specific career services.

Shoemaker says LMC this year has just shy of 100 veterans enrolled.