DOWAGIAC — With the holiday season in full swing, leaders with Southwestern Michigan College are asking locals to squeeze one more item onto their gift lists next month: “a healthier future for southwest Michigan.”

Last week, the community college announced the launch of its new “Building Healthy Futures” campaign, the second phase of its ongoing effort to raise $2.6 million for its planned overhaul of the school’s Nursing and Health Education building. College leaders are encouraging members of the community to donate to the new initiative, which they said will help the college meet increasing health care needs in Michigan and beyond.

The “Building Healthy Futures” campaign is the next major step in SMC’s efforts to fund the $9.6-million expansion of its nursing education facility, located behind the college’s administrative offices in the heart of the Dowagiac campus.

Since February, college President David Mathews and members of the college foundation have been reaching out to health care organizations, such as Lakeland and Borgess, as well as wealthy private donors, to kick start the effort.

“As we continue to work with a few big donors, we felt it was time to open up donations to the general public,” he said. “We really welcome, and will benefit from, more and more people supporting this project.”

Mathews said that eventually expanding the scope of fundraising has always been in the cards. With the holiday season being the time of year when many people donate to charitable causes, last week was the perfect time to launch the new campaign, he said.

All donations will help fund around 30 percent of the expansion. The remaining $7 million will consist of $4 million from the State of Michigan and $3 million in funds set aside by the college for the project.

The construction project, which officially broke ground this fall, will more than double the size of the existing nursing building, which opened in 1970. The enhanced facility will have room for eight new classrooms, which will include 20 beds for nursing instruction, dedicated rooms for specialized demonstrations and four state-of-the-art simulation labs, where students can work with robots capable of simulating childbirth and other common procedures.

The larger facility will allow the college to admit a greater number of students into its nursing and other health care-related programs, Mathews said. Currently, the college’s accreditation agency only allows 40 students per semester to participate in the program, a figure leaders are hoping to increase to 56.

In addition to offering more instruction space, the renovated facility will also have a new lounge area near the front entrance that is intended to encourage greater interaction between faculty and students outside the classroom. The design of the expansion draws heavily from elements of the college’s recent renovations of its P.D. O’Leary and Daugherty buildings, including having more windows for greater natural light.

So far, crews have completed several preliminary tasks for the project, which is expected to kick into high gear in the coming weeks following the delivery of structural steel for the expansion, Mathews said. Building will last through most of 2018, with the first classes inside the renovated facility set to begin in January 2019.

Mathews said that SMC’s nursing program — which was awarded a five-year accreditation from the nationally-recognized Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing in April — is becoming a greater need for the community, as the demand for quality health care grows across the country due to the aging baby-boomer generation and rising obesity rates among the population. SMC nursing graduates comprise a large portion of the staffing at medical facilities in the area, including Dowagiac’s Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital.

“[Our program] not only meets the needs of employees, but, as I witness at every graduation ceremony, we are providing a pathway for students to begin a great paying, transformative career that can improve the lives of their families,” Mathews said.

While college leaders are still welcoming large donations, any contribution will make a big impact, Mathews said.

“They don’t have to give $10,000 to help support this project,” Mathews said. “Gifts of all sizes will be combined to make this project a reality.”

People interested in making a contribution to the “Building Healthy Futures” campaign may visit its website, at swmich.edu/healthy-futures, or may contact SMC Foundation Director of Development Eileen Toney at (269) 782-1301 or etoney01@swmich.edu.