Dispatch Media Group - Everyday Heroes of Central Ohio 2017

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letter from the publisher

EvERyday HERoEs A Dispatch Media Group publication 62 E. Broad St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-461-5236

Get ready to meet the

EvEryday HEroEs

President

of Central ohio.

Bradley M. Harmon

Publisher/dispatch Magazines Ray Paprocki

After a bruising and polarizing election season, the Dispatch Media Group (DMG) was inspired to showcase 25 residents who quietly work to heal, unite and improve our communities. So we put out a call for nominations to recognize members of the Columbus area whose extraordinarily selfless acts set them apart in these divisive times. We received 118 recommendations and our panel of judges selected five finalists and 20 semifinalists. Each will be honored at a luncheon on Sept. 19 in the Boat House restaurant, with one finalist being named the top Everyday Hero. DMG will donate $15,000 of in-kind advertising services to the organization affiliated with the winner. (For more information, go to dispatch.com/ everydayheroes.) To highlight their achievements, we also have created this special publication through the combined efforts of The Columbus Dispatch, ThisWeek Community News and Dispatch Magazines. Read on to learn their stories, from a 14-year-old girl who has led a drive to give away more than 40,000 books; a volunteer who’s served at a suicide prevention hotline for nearly 30 years; a woman who founded an organization to help families affected by childhood cancer; a former addict who aids people with addictions. And even a drag queen who has raised more than $1 million in charitable contributions. Rarely has what they accomplished earned big headlines, but their collective works over time have made an immeasurable impact on countless lives, making a significant difference in our communities. We salute them.

EdIToRIaL Editor Alan Miller

Contributing writers Kayla Beard Frank DiRenna Rachel Duthie Nate Ellis Alan Froman Chris Gaitten Ken Gordon Sheridan Hendrix Megan Henry Julanne Hohbach Michael Huson Andrew Keiper Andrew King

dEsIGN & PRodUCTIoN Production and Design Director Craig Rusnak Designer Michaela Schuett

Sales Director Craig Foglietti

Ray Paprocki

President Dispatch Media Group

Publisher Dispatch Magazines

MaRKETING

Marketing Director Eric Wygle

Everyday Heroes is published by GateHouse Media, LLC. All contents of this magazine are copyrighted Š 2017, all rights reserved. Reproduction or use, without written permission, of editorial or graphic content in any manner is prohibited. Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited materials.

SEPTEMBER 2017

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Marla K. Kuhlman Kevin Parks Rita Price Dave Purpura Gary Seman Jr. Chloe Teasley Erica Thompson Emily Williams Pamela Willis Elaina Wilson Mary Yost Holly Zachariah

Contributing photographers Eric Albrecht Rob Hardin Tessa Berg Tim Johnson Joshua Bickel Jodi Miller Adam Cairns Jonathan Quilter Lorrie Cecil Kyle Robertson Shane Flanigan

advERTIsING

Bradley M. Harmon

Contributing editors Lee Cochran Kelly Lecker Eric Lyttle

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contents

Finalists

10 Meagan Warren Books for Bedtime

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34

46

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renna Schafler The optimist

MarShall cheathaM The music man

hoWard Warner Beneficent barber

tricia KeelS Feeding the hungry

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Everyday Heroes Awards Luncheon Tuesday, Sept. 19 The Boat House at Confluence Park 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Dispatch Media Group is showcasing Central Ohio residents who quietly work to heal, unite and improve our communities. After receiving nominations, a panel of editors and readers selected 25 people whose extraordinarily selfless acts set them apart in these divisive times.

HONORING FINALISTS:

AND SEMIFINALISTS:

Marshall Cheatham Tricia Keels Renna Schafler Harold Warner Meagan Warren

Patti Bernett Peter Cline Donn Ditzhazy Michael Doody Beth Fleshman Nicole Gnezda

Joyce Guenther Georgeanna Haviland Carol Haynes Ellie Hite Gabe Howard Sarah Kersey Andrew Levitt

John Martin Vanita Nevis Cindy Rieman Robert Shyrigh Kenny Sipes Connie Swackhammer Sue Wolfe

Individual tickets are $25 and tables of eight are available for $175. Tickets available at dispatch.com/everydayheroes now until Sept. 15.

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contents

Semifinalists

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Vanita neVis Rebuilding lives

42 sue wolfe Working for youth

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John Martin Special Olympics volunteer

44 JoyCe Guenther The blood banker

14 GeorGeanna haViland Enabler of the disabled

50 patti bernett The pathfinder

16 Gabe howard The survivor

52 robert shyriGh The beautifier

18 Carol haynes Serving children— and parents

54 Cindy rieMan It takes a village 56 beth fleshMan Hair and care

20 Kenny sipes Coffee with conviction

62 peter Cline Fast cars for veterans

26 sarah Kersey Overcoming fears

64 Connie swaCKhaMMer Friend to pets of the homeless

28 donn ditzhazy A Santa of sorts

40

JudGes

30 niCole Gnezda Therapy through art

rachel Kilroy Columbus Dispatch scot Kirk Columbus Dispatch

32 andrew leVitt Altruism in drag

brooke laValley Columbus Dispatch

38 ellie hite AngelWorks Foundation

helen Jackson Columbus Dispatch Advisory Board

40 MiChael doody Planting roots

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Melanie bryan Moon Columbus Dispatch Advisory Board ray paprocki Dispatch Magazines erica thompson Columbus Alive Mary yost Columbus CEO

alan Miller Columbus Dispatch

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Subscribe to

This year, Columbus Monthly magazine has taken home 15 awards from state and national journalism organizations. Including: • 2017 City and Regional Magazine Association’s awards competition for General Excellence as a finalist for best city magazine in the country in its circulation category. • Best monthly magazine in the state of Ohio by Society of Professional Journalists.

SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE!

Here’s what’s in store for you with a one year subscription: • 12 issues of Columbus Monthly • 2 issues of Home & Garden • 1 issue of Restaurant Guide • 1 issue of Best Driving Vacation • 1 issue of Giving • 1 issue of Health (debuting in January) • 200,000 DMG Rewards points to win tickets, gift cards and other great prizes

Subscribe or renew your annual subscription to Columbus Monthly for $18. Go to columbusmonthly.com or call 877-688-8009.

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SEMIFInalISt “I’ve never seen a woman so unselfish and so giving.”

Vanita Nevis helps former inmates—whom she refers to as restored citizens— navigate their way back into becoming productive members of society.

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Rebuilding lives

Vanita neVis One wOman’s passiOn prOject has brOught help and stability tO inmates returning tO sOciety. FOr peOple typically cast OFF, she’s a gOdsend.

by Chris GaiTTen

Photo by Tim johnson

coluMbus Monthly

DIspatch MagazInes

Inmates flock to Vanita Nevis. A cynic might say they’re enticed by the candy she puts on her table at prison resource fairs, which may well be true. If they grab for it without introducing themselves, though, she’ll bat their hands away and scold them: “Did you acknowledge me?” And yet they linger anyway—maybe they come for the candy, but they stay for Nevis. To those drawn by her unwavering honesty and inimitable charm, she’s a vital link to a better life outside these prison walls. “She pushes people to rise to their potential,” said Sharon Ware, the local United Way’s assistant impact director of the Neighborhood Partnership Center. Ware began working with Nevis five years ago, when she and a group of colleagues wanted Ware’s help in starting the Central Ohio Citizen Circle, an all-volunteer community organization that provides wraparound support for inmates returning from prison. There were circles across the state, but nothing in Franklin County. For Nevis, 64, it was a continuation of her professional role with the Ohio Department of Development. Starting in 2009, she led several projects aimed at increasing entrepreneurship among recently released inmates, called restored citizens, whose criminal backgrounds often preclude career opportunities. When Nevis retired in 2013, she took over the Citizen Circle’s leadership position, with ongoing marketing help from Ware and the United Way. Initially, the circle consisted of monthly meetings, where restored citizens would sit with a joint group from the re-entry community, like the Legal Aid Society and Alvis House. As her early colleagues dropped out, Nevis began going into prisons for semiannual re-entry resource fairs, where inmates meet organizations that can help them reintegrate with society. For those with no family or support upon their release, she offered a crucial service: She would provide the simple but essential things that could deliver stability when they were most vulnerable.

Nevis picked them up and ferried them around—to meet parole officers, to get IDs, to shop for supplies. She gave them donated food, toiletries, clothing, whatever they needed. All she asked was that they come to Citizen Circle meetings to link with other re-entry organizations. She did much of the work alone until the arrival of her right-hand man Tim Myers, a full-time volunteer who had spent more than four years in a federal penitentiary and wanted to give back. He joins Nevis on prison trips and helps provide restored citizens with basic necessities after their release. Myers, who nominated Nevis as an Everyday Hero, said she will go to extremes to help someone, often using money from her own pocket. “I’ve never seen a woman so unselfish and so giving,” he said. These days, Myers does most of the daily legwork, as Nevis spends nearly all her time at home in Canal Winchester caring for her husband, who has advanced Alzheimer’s. It hurts her that she can’t do more, she said, though she’s encouraged by the fact that the Franklin County Reentry Coalition and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections are considering hosting the monthly meetings that she had to discontinue. She remains involved by coordinating with re-entry programs, inmates and the other volunteers—all of whom are former inmates like Myers—and she continues her prison visits. During those visits, Nevis offers more than practical assistance to inmates. “They’re just people who want someone to listen to them, someone to reach out to them,” she said. As they approach her table, she stands to greet them, shakes their hands. She interacts and makes them laugh. She prays with them and offers scriptures and quotations. Nevis isn’t entirely sure what drove her to this calling, except her faith and her instinct to act. “I just do. A lot of times it’s not a thought, it’s just—go do it,” she said. “So I guess that’s where God led me.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “This is a group of people who have either been ignored, pointed or laughed at. This is their opportunity to say, ‘This is what I can do.’ ”

John Martin has coached the Franklin County Flyers Special Olympics team for two decades.

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Special OlympicS VOlunteer

John Martin talk with ailing brother inspires long special olyMpics involveMent

byAndrew King thisweek community news

John Martin has been volunteering as a track coach with the Franklin County Special Olympics for more than 20 years. He has worked with hundreds of athletes, spent countless hours at the track and taken home multiple awards for his service. But for Martin, his service isn’t defined by who he has helped. Instead, they represent progress in his own life. In 1996, Martin was going through a divorce and transitioning into life as a single father with two teenage sons, Ian and Jake. At the same time, his brother, Michael, was preparing for brain surgery. Martin said he was too consumed by his own problems to focus on his brother’s needs. “I was sort of lamenting my poor situation in life to a man who was dying of cancer, which is probably an ignorant thing to do,” Martin said. “He pointed out that I was pretty lucky, and that I should see what I could do to help other people.” Martin said that conversation changed his life. Days later, he received a flyer from a Special Olympics group that was seeking donations. A donation, however, wasn’t in the cards for Martin. “If you know anyone going through a divorce, money is not necessarily what you have at that point,” he said. So instead of money, Martin offered his skills. Having long been involved with the track and cross country programs at Ohio State University, he began volunteering with the Special Olympics track team. Just months after he joined the program, the team’s head coach took a job elsewhere. Martin stepped up and has been in charge of the team for last 20 years. On paper, the Westerville resident’s long stint as a volunteer Special Olympics coach seems at odds with his background. Martin openly admits he can be demanding and even intimidating at his day job; it’s a trait he learned on active duty in the Army, which he then transitioned into a career with the U.S.

Photo by Lorrie CeCiL thisweek community news

Department of Defense, working in defense logistics since 1994. But with his athletes, he said, that mentality melts away. Martin tends to prefer the calmer, positive environment at the Special Olympics. When he compares his athletes to his coworkers in daily life, the differences are countless. “If I ask my athletes to do anything, they’re going to do it,” he said. “They may not do it real well, but they’re going to do it to the best of their ability. And they have a certain joy and dedication that you don’t necessarily see in a lot of everyday people or ‘normal’ people.” Ryan Phillips is the director of Special Olympics for the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities. He said the two sides of Martin “work in harmony” and bring out the best of him in his coaching role. “John is pretty unique,” Phillips said. “His gruff Army-ranger temperament is somehow mitigated in his work with our athletes. He is completely at home and comfortable in his leadership role of 100-plus athletes and volunteer coaches at our practices and competitions.” Martin said he admires his athletes, and it’s their motivation for participating that inspires him. He said he rarely sees the finish of a race because the race itself is the easy part for his participants. Instead, he focuses his energy on making sure they get to the starting line. Because once they start, “they’re going to give me their best, whatever that is,” he said. “They want to show the world who they are,” he said. “This is a group of people who have either been ignored, pointed or laughed at. This is their opportunity to say, ‘Look at me. This is what I can do.’” At 61, Martin admits he’s not quite as energetic in his coaching as he once was, but he doesn’t plan on leaving the organization any time soon. “I’m starting to slow down a little bit,” he said. “I think at some point in time I won’t be able to keep up with the athletes as well as I should. … But I’ll probably still remain associated with them in some way or another.” SEPTEMBER 2017

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Books for Bedtime

Meagan Warren Bexley freshMan donates More than 40,000 Books to children in need.

by Julanne hohbach

Photos by Tim Johnson

coluMbus parent

Dispatch Magazines

Bexley Middle School Principal Jason Caudill was caught a bit off guard by his first encounter with Meagan Warren. “The first time I met her, she was actually a sixth-grader, and she was disappointed that we were no longer offering Latin in the middle school,” Caudill said. She offered a proposal: If she took lessons online on her own time and passed the school’s required test, could she enroll in high-schoollevel Latin? Within just a few months, Caudill said, she had learned the basic curriculum and was able to take Latin as a seventh-grader. That same sense of drive and determination had earlier served the Bexley teenager well on an even bigger challenge: At the age of 11, she started her own nonprofit, Books for Bedtime, to get reading materials into the hands of kids who need them by donating new and gently used books to schools, homeless shelters and food pantries. She hatched the plan for Books for Bedtime while visiting her grandparents, Gary and Karen Lennard, on Mackinac Island, Michigan. “I’ve always had a passion for reading,” Meagan said. “Books are great for getting away from life.” When it occurred to her that not all children have access to books, she talked to her mother, Shannon, and decided to do something about it. Meagan’s grandparents helped get the idea off the ground by hiring an attorney to launch Books for Bedtime in 2014 and to secure 501(c) (3) nonprofit status, which it achieved in May 2016. Meagan donated a modest 125 books her first year, but things took off quickly from there. By the end of 2015, Books for Bedtime had given 10

meagan Warren, inside her book-filled bexley garage

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Finalist “i didn’t think it was possible for someone my age to have a charity this big.”

SEPTEMBER 2017

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Meagan Warren Age: 14 Neighborhood: Bexley Who inspires her? “A lot of people inspire me. My great-grandpa, he’s always inspired me.” She said Sharon Hudson, a World War II veteran who died in 2016, always struck her as kind, intelligent and courageous. The fact that he made it through a war, she said, helps put any challenge she faces into perspective. What keeps her engaged? “I think seeing the kids’ reactions is what really keeps me engaged in Books for Bedtime,” she said. When Meagan delivers books to a school, she often gives a quick talk, holds a Q&A session and offers help to students having a hard time choosing a book. “I also encourage them to read every night,” she said.

Loading up the family van to make another delivery

away 5,000 books—a figure that grew to 21,000 by the close of 2016. As of mid-July, Books for Bedtime had donated 40,200 books earmarked for low-income children all around the state. “I never thought that it would be this big ever,” Meagan said. “I didn’t think it was possible for someone my age to have a charity this big.”

books on their front porch. “I get the books that I donate from individuals and families, mostly,” Meagan said. A few businesses, including L Brands, have held corporate book drives for the organization. The mom-and-daughter team makes three to four donation stops per month, said Warren, who teaches kindergarten at Hamilton STEM Academy in Linden.

Neither did her mother. “It really expanded upon what I thought,” Warren said.

“The kids love the books. I get thank-you cards all the time,” Meagan said. “I never thought that giving one kid one book could change their life.”

The program’s success has drawn notice. Meagan received a regional 2016 Jefferson Award, which was created nationally in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Sen. Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio, and is now presented in more than 50 regions of the country.

Neighborhood Services Inc., located in the University District, was the second organization ever to receive books from the Warrens. Now it gets about 1,500 books each month.

The program is well-known enough, especially in Bexley, that it’s not unusual for the Warrens to arrive home to find a box of

The social services agency provides a food pantry, tax help, clothing, back-to-school supplies and other items to low-income

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Since starting Books for Bedtime, Meagan Warren has donated more than 40,000 books for lowincome children around the state.

At the Warrens’ home, donated books occupy much of their garage and basement. Volunteers organize and sort the books, checking condition and stamping them with a Books for Bedtime designation. Local families and students, a troop of Hilliard Girl Scouts and even companies such as Cardinal Health regularly lend a hand. “I would not be able to do what I do without volunteers,” Meagan said.

neighborhood residents. NSI served 31,305 individuals in 2016. Executive Director Martin Butler said 39 percent of those helped in the first half of 2017 were children. He doesn’t mince words when talking about Meagan: “She’s the real deal,” he said, adding, “We have a huge book section now, and we have it because of Books for Bedtime.” Families who visit the NSI offices at 1950 N. 4th St. are invited to take a book from the shelves to pass the time—something that’s very helpful since families may wait as long as an hour for their food allotments. “It’s transformed our waiting room,” Butler said. “One of the things I enjoy most about her is that she has read a lot of the books she’s giving us,” Butler said, adding that Meagan has an eye for providing titles that encourage kids to start reading. Meagan has been praised for the maturity of her mission, but in many ways, she’s a typical teenage girl. Her room is filled with photos, books and knickknacks. She likes owls, card games, popular music, Harry Potter and hanging out with her friends. She plays field hockey for Bexley High School. She loves to watch ice hockey. She’s also active in Mensa, a global membership society for individuals with high IQs. When she visits local schools, Meagan reminds kids to read every night—something she does herself. She recently read “Outliers: The Story of Success,” by Malcolm Gladwell. She loves anything about and by Romans (after all, Latin is her favorite class), as well as poetry. Her sentimental favorite is “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

The Warrens also raise money to support Books for Bedtime. A free Book Bash held May 20 at Maryland Elementary School included vendors, carnival games, crafts and a silent auction; the event generated almost $2,000. Warren said the funds raised are used to fulfill special requests for specific books or more diverse titles, as well as to purchase event signs and to help defray the cost of gasoline for their many drop-offs around town. A $5,000 donation from local real estate agency the Raines Group and a small grant from the Cardinal Health Foundation have piqued Meagan’s interest in purchasing and setting up Little Free Libraries, her mother said. Meagan’s former principal calls her a “phenomenal, bright young lady (with) this real sense of purpose around literacy.” She already is thinking about college, though she’s only entering her freshman year of high school. She went on a summer college tour with her mother and grandparents, followed by a trip to the Mensa Annual Gathering in Florida. “I want to be a Classics major simply because I love Romans,” she said, after which she hopes to attend law school and work in nonprofit law. And what happens to her Books for Bedtime work when she goes off to college? Meagan is already pondering a succession plan. “I might want to pass the torch,” she said, suggesting she might hand it off to another student. In the meantime, she’s always looking for more books—and more places that need them. “One of the most beautiful things about Meagan is she’s doing something,” said Butler, of Neighborhood Services Inc. “If everybody did something on purpose for somebody else that was not like them, how that would change the world.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “They’re all capable and they’re all champions because they’re absolutely amazing.”

Georgeanna Haviland, founder of team Heart & Sole, before the Dash for Donations race benefiting lifeline of Ohio at Genoa Park July 5.

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EnablEr of thE disablEd

GeorGeanna Haviland nonprofit founded by WortHinGton Woman Gives tHose WitH pHysical disabilities tHe joy of atHletic pursuits. by Mary yosT coluMbus ceo

From April to November, former teacher Georgeanna Haviland is busy with a work of heart—Team Heart & Sole, to be precise. She is the founding force and chief cheerleader of a nonprofit dedicated to involving people with disabilities in race events throughout central Ohio. But Haviland, 58, of Worthington, urges emphasis on the team— board members, volunteers, teammates who provide the muscle and “champions” who provide the heart—that has driven the organization since it began about six years ago. The vision behind Team Heart & Sole is that those with disabilities are capable, given the opportunity to be on a team that supports their desire to participate. The organization was born from Haviland’s determination to give those who couldn’t do it on their own athletic team experiences like those that her daughter and two sons enjoyed while running cross country for Thomas Worthington High School.

Photo by Tessa Berg DIspatch MagazInes Freelancer

35 champions a year, aged 5 to 84, with 16 to 20 participating in each race. “The champions are the heart of the team and our teammates are the sole, s-o-l-e. And then we have a number of volunteers that do all the other things. Our organization is totally inclusive,” Haviland explained. Early on, most of the donations procured by the organization were used to purchase the specialized equipment the champions need to participate—race wheelchairs that cost $500 each. Now, race fees are its biggest expense, running $500 or more per event, Haviland said. In cycling events, champions in trailers called wikes are pulled by their teammates on bikes. For the occasional triathlon, champions wear life jackets in rubber dinghies as swimming teammates wear harnesses to pull them through the water. This year’s schedule ends with a Rotary 5K in Westerville Nov. 4.

The seed for Team Heart & Sole was sown in 2008 when Haviland saw an athlete at her daughter’s cross country meet guiding an autistic teammate through the race. Always a runner herself; she appreciated what her children had gained from being part of their cross country teams and was inspired by the thought of extending the joy of athletic teamwork to others. After a few years of exploration, Haviland sprouted the organization with a board of six members in 2011, initially operating under a similar organization in Michigan, My Team Triumph. By 2014, ready to continue on its own, Team Heart & Sole was created with the mission of helping the disabled, their families and friends enjoy team relationships by participating in races. Team Heart & Sole identifies more than a dozen events a season for its disabled athletes, referred to as champions, who are powered along race routes and across finish lines by fellow teammates. The nonprofit organization typically serves about

To participate, champions need only ask. The organization takes care of registration, equipment and lining up teammates, recognizing that just showing up is challenge enough for champions and their families, due to their disabilities. “They’re braving the cold, they’re braving the heat. They’re braving sitting in that chair, which is uncomfortable for a lot of them. Their sacrifices as an athlete are great; they’re greater than you can even imagine. Yes, they’re all athletes and they’re all capable and they’re all champions because they’re absolutely amazing.” Haviland has no interest in being honored for her work, but she welcomes inviting others “to see what we’re doing so they can also say, ‘Hey, I can do that,’ or ‘I can help that.’ Or, ‘this is my sport. How can I help others get involved in my sport?’ That’s what we want.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “I decided now that I was at the top of the ladder, it was my turn to reach my hand down.”

Gabe Howard turned his own struggle with mental illness into motivation to help others.

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The Survivor

Gabe Howard reynoldsburG man turns His own demons into compassion for tHe mentally ill by PameLa WiLLis Thisweek communiTy news

Photo by Lorrie ceciL Thisweek communiTy news

Gabe Howard is a survivor and a fighter.

illness ever nominated, Kiner said.

Howard, 40, survived what he called an “epic” four-year battle with bipolar disorder that began with his own thoughts of suicide.

“Watching Gabe be an advocate for people with mental illness is part amazing and part heartbreaking,” she said. “He never, ever gets the recognition other patient/medical advocates get. I watch people ignore him, talk down to him or discount him, all because of his diagnosis.

His friend and former wife Lisa Kiner, who nominated Howard as an Everyday Hero, took him to the emergency psychiatric ward one night in 2003 because she believed Howard when he said he wanted to die. “At that time, I had no idea what to expect from the rest of his life, or if I’d be a part of it,” Kiner said. She became a large part of his life, however, and his recovery. “She saved my life,” Howard said. “Without Lisa, I never would have gotten better and achieved so much”—including, he said, marrying his current wife, Kendall. Kiner and Howard married one year after his diagnosis, but even though their marriage did not work out, “she is still my best friend,” Howard said. He said Kiner “partnered” with him to help him recover. “She didn’t tell me what to do, treat me like a child or tell me I was incapable,” he said. “She helped me along the way. That made a big difference.” Howard and his wife live in Reynoldsburg. He is now an advocate for people living with mental illness. He works for the PEER Center, a local nonprofit that assists people with mental illness, addiction and trauma; he also volunteers for the Crisis Intervention Team, training police officers on how to respond to people experiencing a mental health crisis. Howard was the 2014 recipient of the Norman Guitry Award, given by Mental Health America-Franklin County, which recognizes “exceptional leadership in promoting mental illness awareness and prevention and serving mental health issues in central Ohio.” Howard also placed second in Health Central’s “Live Bold, Live Now” contest, which celebrates people who fight the stigma of mental illness. He was the first person with mental

“If he was a cancer patient doing the same thing, people would have an entirely different attitude.” People should realize that “mental illness is real,” Howard said. “It’s a medical disease that requires medical intervention,” he said. “It can’t be cured by being a good friend or taking someone out for pizza. That doesn’t mean you can’t be supportive, it just means that support should include helping someone see a doctor.” He said many people helped in his recovery. “It was hard, and the people around me said it was heartbreaking to watch,” he said. “Medication, therapy, doctor visits, support groups—I used every tool I could find because, more than anything, I wanted to be well so I could move on with my life.” Then came giving back. “When I was sick, a lot of people helped me—strangers from a support group who I wouldn’t recognize if they passed me on the street,” Howard said. “When I reached recovery, I realized just how much those people helped me. “When I was at the bottom of the ladder and reached my hand up, people were there to grab it,” he said. “So I decided now that I was at the top of the ladder, it was my turn to reach my hand down.” Howard said most people try to ignore mental illness. “In most schools, mental health is not taught and as a society, we don’t discuss mental illness; it’s (considered) shameful and private,” he said. “But we must have those difficult conversations.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Serving children— and parentS

carol haynes Day care owner committeD to “putting broken pieces back together.” By nate ellis ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Photo By lorrie CeCil ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Giving struggling children and families a hand up to avoid life’s pitfalls and bolster her community continues to motivate the owner of a Reynoldsburg preschool and day care center nearly six years after she launched her business. That’s a promise Carol Haynes, Kiddie Academy of Reynoldsburg director and owner, set out to keep when she opened her academy in December 2011, after years of volunteering as a girls basketball and youth track coach. At the time, she knew she was passionate about working with young people and helping to steer them away from crime and violence. But, she said, she had yet to fully grasp the needs of children in her own and surrounding communities. And as she began to try to provide them with day care, mentorships and opportunities for recreation and learning, she realized that many of the youth’s parents were likewise in need of information and services to help nurture and grow their families. “We’re really kind of gap-fillers,” said Haynes, 45, of Pickerington. Kiddie Academy of Reynoldsburg primarily serves children ranging in age from 6 weeks to 13 years. In addition to providing safe harbor, her facility offers transportation to school as well as before- and after-school programs that cover everything from physical fitness to music education. Classes seek to teach students about different cultures and the histories behind them, as well as language arts and literacy and science and technology. 18

Haynes also preaches “character education” to students, and she meets daily with parents to help ensure they know about the dangers of such things as sudden infant death syndrome or to find out if she can link them with community resources. Though a franchisee of Kiddie Academy, Haynes has taken strides to carve out her own curriculum and programs to meet specific needs in her community; she now serves about 750 students from 45 different schools in districts that include Columbus, Gahanna, Groveport, Pickerington, Reynoldsburg and Whitehall. “Really, we try to have (students) see us as service leaders,” she said. “I think it’s really important to model that for our children so they understand the importance of giving back. “We’ve been able, I think, to kind of create an oasis for our kids,” Haynes said. “Our kids want to be there for the programs we offer.”

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SEMIFInalISt “She speaks for the voiceless and cares for the vulnerable, all while having a heart for young women and children.”

Carol Haynes, surrounded by some of the children who benefit from the Kiddie academy of Reynoldsburg, which she founded.

Although she runs a for-profit business, Haynes uses her own resources to provide book bags and other school supplies, SIDS training and items such as gift cards for shoes. She also provides a free spaghetti dinner to 400 people that features a bounce house and other kids’ activities. “She speaks for the voiceless and cares for the vulnerable, all while having a heart for young women and children,” said Ashley Phillips. “During 2016 alone, Carol Haynes fed 350 families during a Lights On for After School program, and in August, provided free backpacks and school supplies to more than 500 children and fed 1,800 people without donations or outside assistance. “Daily she works to fight for at-risk children in poverty, while working to eliminate childhood hunger where the free and reduced-lunch rate continues to climb. ‘No one goes home hungry’ are oftentimes words she will whisper.”

Phillips added that Haynes “gently coaches and educates young moms and families” to prevent SIDS and shows care and concern for young women. “Carol Haynes is a phenomenal woman,” Phillips said. Haynes said the responsibility of her work weighs heavily on her, although she finds it fun and rewarding. She’s also committed to “putting the broken pieces back together” in fractured lives and giving young people opportunities to enjoy life and pursue dreams. “Really, my goal—and why I do this—is to continue to provide that access and exposure to opportunities,” Haynes said. “We’re able to keep them off the streets, keep them out of trouble. “It’s that opportunity to succeed. It fuels me to watch them grow, and we tell the kids we work with, ‘Find a way or make one.’ We’ll keep fighting.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “We’re in business to make coffee and save lives.”

Kenny Sipes founded Roosevelt Coffeehouse with the mission of combating hunger, human trafficking and contaminated water.

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Coffee with ConviCtion

Kenny SipeS RooSevelt CoffeehouSe SendS itS pRofitS to the fRontlineS in the fight againSt hungeR, human tRaffiCKing and unSafe dRinKing wateR.

by Frank Direnna thisweek community news

Photo by Lorrie CeCiL thisweek community news

Contemplating his future in the fall of 2012, Kenny Sipes arrived at a crossroads.

should die of preventable water-borne diseases, nobody should starve to death and nobody should lack freedom,” he said.

He’d served as deacon of youth ministry at Jersey Baptist Church in Pataskala for about 10 years, and was happy with his position there. But something was compelling him to look for something more “justice-oriented” in which he could assist those less fortunate. “In 2008 I went on a mission trip in Africa with some kids and just saw poverty at a level I’d never seen before. That changed me,” he said.

The coffeehouse also has allowed Sipes to befriend a loyal customer base, and he attempts to interact with all of his guests. One of the loyal customers he befriended was Hannah Palumbo, who first visited the coffeehouse in 2015 while attending nearby Columbus State Community College. She later interned at the coffeehouse before becoming an employee. Sipes’ fundraising efforts motivated Palumbo to pursue similar efforts, as she is part of a group attempting to open a coffeehouse in Haiti.

That led Sipes, 52, to opening the Roosevelt Coffeehouse on Long Street in downtown Columbus in April 2015. Sipes, 52, said he and his wife, Lori, decided on the name while visiting the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial while on vacation in Washington, D.C., in 2013. In a financial report from 2016, the not-for-profit coffeehouse generated $12,299 to combat human trafficking, $7,423 for unclean water and $6,163 to fight hunger. “We opened in April of 2015 and we just surpassed giving a little over $60,000 in the first two years,” Sipes said. “We try not to general fund this at all. We’re trying to drive a specific need that they have, so we can put money into that need and then we can report on that need that we provided for, and that seems to have a lot more impact and influence in this culture. “We’re in business to make coffee and save lives, so our giving has come out of what we’ve been able to create here. … Our core values are love, justice, coffee, humility and optimism.” Sipes has made connections with several organizations locally and worldwide through all three fundraising projects. “Nobody

“I was looking to some different coffee development as well as cafe job growth and business development in Haiti, and he was the person I thought of because he stands for justice issues,” Palumbo said. “He really has a heart and passion for it and you can see that just in the one or two interactions that we had. … It left a really strong impression.” Sipes also has proven to be a hands-on founder, as he assists in several duties at the downtown shop, including brewing coffee, serving customers and clearing tables. The Sipes live in Pickerington and are the parents of Emma, 26; Ethan, 23; Jack, 18; and Miles, 15. Ethan and Jack are employed at the coffeehouse. Several organizations hold meetings at Sipes’ business, adding to his rapport with the community. “He really takes the time with people and he wants to know your story,” Palumbo said. “He wants to know what your life is about and what your passions are. … He truly cares about people and he just wants to love people, and you see that in his interactions. He’s setting such a great example for everyone around him.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Finalist “i think it’s just more that i want to help with that sadness. i can’t imagine when it isn’t fleeting, when it doesn’t go away...”

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The OpTimisT

Renna SchafleR Suicide hotline volunteeR haS a gift foR helping the hopeleSS enviSion tomoRRow

by RiTa PRice the coluMbus Dispatch

Photo by Tim Johnson Dispatch Magazines

Given the depth of her loss, Renna Schafler easily could have been the one seeking help. But the 19-year-old walked into the mentalhealth agency with a different view. She wanted to learn how to guide someone else, to see a person through some of the terrible, anguished moments when life-or-death decisions are made. She wanted to be the voice on the other end of the suicide hotline. “Pain isn’t something you try to pretty up,” Schafler said. “You just learn to breathe through it.” She was 14 when her mother died of cancer. Barely four years later, the disease took her father. Although relatives and neighbors and classmates felt sorry for Schafler and her siblings, “people didn’t know how to treat us,” she said. The grief and fear were intense. Yet Schafler felt them yielding, little by little, to faith and strength. She pictured herself marching forward. “You put one foot in front of the other, and at some point things get better,” she said.

Renna schafler has been manning the phones at the North Central Mental health’s Suicide Prevention Services office for nearly three decades.

Schafler is 48 now. She didn’t pursue a career in counseling, as she’d thought, and a marriage didn’t last, as she’d hoped. The Galloway resident works as a project coordinator for a mechanical contractor, is deeply involved in her church and has a 10-year-old son, Cullen, who bears the maiden name of the grandma he never met. But Schafler is still picking up the phone for people in crisis. No one has served longer as a volunteer at North Central Mental Health’s Suicide Prevention Services. “I’ve been doing it for 26 years, and Renna’s ahead of me,” said Rick Baumann, another longtime volunteer who joined the staff as assistant coordinator. “Why? Because if there’s anything that helps people, it’s helping someone else. It validates you.” SEPTEMBER 2017

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Renna SchafleR Age: 48 Neighborhood: Galloway, in western Franklin County Who inspires her: Cullen, her 10-year-old son. “He makes me be a better person because I want to be his role model.”

Photos by TESSa BErG (4)

What keeps her engaged: Seeing what a good word or deed can do. “Whether it’s just putting a smile on someone’s face or talking on the crisis line, that’s what really does it for me. Every day I want to make a difference.”

Renna Schafler and her 10-year-old son Cullen volunteer together to clean their Life Community Church in Hilliard among other places around town.

Schafler is a natural, Baumann said. Much of what others have to learn—controlled, constructive empathy can be tricky business—Schafler seems to know instinctively. “She’s going to find you hope,” he said. “We’re hope salesmen here. And Renna is really persistent.” Unlike Baumann, whose son took his life, Schafler hasn’t been touched by the suicide of someone close. Even during her worst times of emotional and financial struggle, she can’t recall more than passing thoughts of what it might be like to remove herself from the world. 24

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Mary Brennen-Hofmann, the prevention program’s former coordinator, said Schafler often gets the best reviews from new volunteers “because she puts her heart into it. It’s a gift she’s found.” After several minutes on the hotline with Schafler, the Sunday afternoon caller is calmer. The two talk about small things she can to do cope—take a walk, write in a journal, go out into the sunshine. “It sounds like you’re planning for the future,” Schafler said, smiling into the phone. “That makes me really happy.”

“I think it’s just more that I want to help with that sadness,” she said. “I can’t imagine when it isn’t fleeting, when it doesn’t go away, when it’s your every waking thought. I want to make a difference there.”

The caller isn’t threatening to harm herself, at least not at the moment. But she feels desperately alone. She can’t find joy anymore. “I’m sorry. I can hear that sadness in your voice,” Schafler tells her. “I’m really glad that you called and I really want to try to help you.” The woman is among a handful of callers Schafler spoke to on a recent Sunday afternoon in the small, sun-streaked hotline room at North Central, where she and another volunteer covered the 3 to 6 p.m. shift. Between rings, Schafler talked about some of the most memorable calls (she said she once prevented a homicide when the caller decided he didn’t want to disappoint her), her love for slightly corny, inspirational messages and why she eschews social media. The latter point frustrates her younger brother, who says he often fields requests from people trying to find his sister on Facebook. “There’s so many hurt feelings online,” Schafler said. “I want to talk to you face to face. Let’s go to dinner. Let’s engage!” She has a tattoo — a heart with a bumblebee — that reflects her stubborn, possibly relentless, optimism. “Bumblebees, scientifically, should not be able to fly,” she said. “But they do.” Although she still likes to man the hotline phones occasionally, Schafler devotes most of her time at North Central these days to training new recruits and giving lectures on how best to encourage callers to talk about their problems and feelings. Fostering commitment in others, Schafler has discovered, can be thrilling. “To see their eagerness, and then to see it applied? Oh, yeah,” she said. “That jazzes me.”

At home, Schafler practices her hotline training lectures before an audience of one. “He’s the greatest kid ever,” she said. Cullen is a familiar face at North Central, too, and he knows all about his mom’s other volunteer projects at her office at Bruner Corp., through their church and at an elementary school where she works with students who need extra help with reading. “I’m trying to be the kind of person I want him to be,” Schafler said. Dan Spurgeon, a vice president of service operations at Bruner, had long been in awe of Schafler’s sense of duty when he nominated her for a national service award given by the Mechanical Service Contractors of America. “I really thought we had a snowflake’s chance,” he said, expecting the winner to again be a wealthy philanthropist or someone who’d started a foundation abroad. But she won. Schafler’s quiet dedication to service seemingly knows no boundary—giving blood, running food drives, sending packages to troops overseas, visiting sick church members, cutting her hair to make wigs for cancer patients. “She’s one of those people who believes that the way to combat negativity in this world is to be the opposite of that,” Spurgeon said. “One little thing at a time. And she never does it for attention or accolades.” Cullen, who deemed his mom “kind of like a celebrity,” went with her to the awards ceremony last fall in Arizona. Schafler earmarked the $1,000 prize for Suicide Prevention Services, then kicked in $500 of her own money so that the program would have enough to buy special T-shirts for hotline volunteers who stay for a third six-month commitment. “All volunteering is important,” Schafler said, “but that’s another level.” On average, someone dies by suicide in Franklin County every two to three days. Schafler has no way of knowing how many lives she has helped to save or at least lengthen in the nearly 30 years since she first started at North Central. BrennenHofmann, the retired prevention director, is sure that Schafler often has been the right person at the right time. “If I had a relative who was suicidal,” she said, “I’d feel they were in good hands with Renna taking their call.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt Sarah Kersey overcame her own bout with cancer and now helps children facing serious illnesses at the Flying Horse Farms.

“I think you are the truest and best version of yourself while you’re here.”

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OvercOming fears

Sarah KerSey Flying horSe FarmS volunteer leadS by example by Emily WilliAms The Columbus DispaTCh

Sarah Kersey is terrified of heights. That’s why, for her first several years as a Flying Horse Farms camp counselor, she never stepped foot on the high ropes course. But a few summers ago, she decided she had put it off long enough. “How could I tell the kids to face their fears if I hadn’t even done it myself?” Kersey said. So she called Mimi Dane, the CEO of Flying Horse Farms, and broke the news: They were going to tackle the high ropes course together. The two have a lot in common. They’re cancer survivors. They both love camp, fiercely. And they were scared stiff to get up on that course. Kersey and Dane still can narrate in detail the terrifying ordeal, from the first climb up the rope net to the final obstacle where Sarah and Mimi, clutching each other’s trembling elbows, rolled logs beneath their feet until they reached the platform. “I’m a stronger CEO because of Sarah,” said Mimi, who insists she never could have finished the course with anyone else. Kersey, 29, has been a part of Flying Horse Farms—a Mount Gilead-based camp for children with serious illnesses and their families—since before its gates opened in 2010. When she was 21, her life was put on hold by a large, cancerous tumor on her spine. Sarah’s neurosurgeon gave her two options: have the entire tumor removed and spend her life in a wheelchair, or try to remove most of the tumor, giving her a chance to walk but risking the cancer would return. Sarah took the risk. She still has a lot of nerve damage, and often feels pain when she walks. But for Sarah, the pain is minimal compared to the joy that’s come of the experience. She never would have been looking for a place like Flying Horse Farms if not for her diagnosis. “Camp really saved me, and that’s why when I got sick it was a blessing,” Sarah said. “This is a huge part of who I am.”

Photo by Eric AlbrEcht The Columbus DispaTCh

Flying Horse Farms doesn’t look like a camp for sick kids. It looks like a camp for any kids. The difference is in the details— custom-made high rope harnesses, wheelchairs that float, a fully accessible boat dock. The nonprofit raises about $4.5 million annually to offer free, week-long camps throughout the summer and free weekend camps for families in the spring and fall. Sarah volunteers for both, even the weekend camps that fall during her school year at Dublin’s Wyandot Elementary, where she teaches third grade. People often commend her for her selfless volunteering. But it’s not selfless, she said. She loves camp. She loves witnessing the transformation in kids who are constantly told they can’t do something that, at camp, they can. “I think you are the truest and best version of yourself while you’re here,” said Sarah. That best version of herself even has a name: Gidget. Ryan Brownfield, the camp’s chief program officer, gave Sarah her camp nickname after the fictional surfer girl. “She’s a fiercely independent girl,” Brownfield said of the TV, film and book character from the 1950s and ‘60s. “She’s tiny, but she’s powerful, and that’s definitely Sarah.” This summer, Sarah was grouped with 11- and 12-year-old boys for Flying Horse Farms’ hematology/oncology week. On the wooded path leading to the high ropes course, her 5½-foot frame would have been almost impossible to pick out from the cluster of preteens if not for her outfit. She wore a purple tutu, a shirt that said, “One life — live it,” and multicolored leggings covered in Flying Horse Farms logos. She also wore a helmet and a harness. She was zip lining with the campers. Sarah Kersey might be terrified of heights, but no one would have known it as she scaled the rope net and, alongside a camper, launched down the zip line, across the pond and to the friends and campers cheering for Gidget on the other side.  SEPTEMBER 2017

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A SAntA of SortS

Donn Ditzhazy Wagons ho ho ho Delivers holiDay joy to those in neeD in northlanD area

By Kevin ParKs ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Photo By shane Flanigan ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Donn Ditzhazy isn’t certain what’s more gratifying about Wagons Ho Ho Ho. Is it that the effort he launched nine years ago at RMD Advertising in the Northland area to provide food, including holiday dinners, to the less fortunate is still going strong? Or is it that the annual effort to put these items together in an old-fashioned children’s wagon attracts hundreds of faithful volunteers? Of course, it’s both. The 55-year-old managing partner of a firm that specializes in national food brands was nominated as an Everyday Hero by Sue Reninger, also a managing partner at RMD. “Motivated by the thought that ‘every child deserves a Christmas,’ Ditzhazy donates all of his time to the charity, and in a decade’s time has grown the wagons from 10 to 1,000 purchased, built and delivered, plus has put a Christmas dinner for four in each wagon,” Reninger wrote in her nomination. “Each year, more than 600 volunteers show up on one day to help build the wagons.” Ditzhazy, who lives in Olde Towne East, recalled that Wagons Ho Ho Ho grew out of a company decision to stop giving holiday presents to clients and instead, making donations on their behalf. “We decided to take that money in the name of clients and purchased red wagons,” he said. His recollection is that there were 25 food-filled wagons that 28

Donn Ditzhazy, outside of RMD Advertising, has organized Wagons ho ho ho, for which more than 600 volunteers help build wagons and fill them with Christmas dinner for at-risk families.

first year. “Of course, we couldn’t stop there,” Ditzhazy said. The number had doubled to 50 the next year and to 75 by the third. Last year the now-registered nonprofit reached its ambitious goal of filling 1,000 wagons. One of the volunteers for the past four years is Robert Byrne, a principal assistant attorney general in the Collections Enforcement Section of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. He recalled being invited to help with the wagon preparations through his long involvement with the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. “Donn has done a phenomenal job growing the event,” Byrne wrote in an email. “He exudes excitement about the program

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SEMIFInalISt “Motivated by the thought that ‘every child deserves a Christmas.’ ”

and has managed to make an event that is mostly work into a lot of fun. He gets around to talk to everyone there and it is in a big room.

event, with the hundreds of volunteers, shows Donn’s unselfish commitment to help others less fortunate.” To Ditzhazy, the wagon is more than just a symbol.

“It is obviously a labor of love,” Byrne added. “He could have continued at the level of the first year or two and been doing a great service, but he has reached higher each year.”

“This is a toy that will last for years and years, and hopefully be turned over to their kids, and that’s gratifying,” he said.

Bill Brooks has been drawn to the wagon-preparation spirit of giving. “I have been volunteering for three years now to build wagons, and Donn has put together a fun and beneficial event,” Brooks stated in an email. “I’m not sure of the numbers, but each year, hundreds of wagons have been assembled and distributed to families in need. The organization of the assembly

For many of the volunteers, the early-December “build” event has become a holiday tradition. “They say, ‘You know what? This is what we do for Christmas, is give back this way,’ and that’s tremendous,” Ditzhazy said. “We’re bringing the community together to do something that’s pretty cool. Writing a check to help people is fine, but getting your hands dirty is neat.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt art therapist Nicole Gnezda, at the Dowd Education Center in Franklinton

“She’s always looking for ways to make someone’s situation better.”

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Therapy Through arT

Nicole GNezda death of soN led art teacher to life of service by Megan henry The Columbus DispaTCh

Photo by Joshua a. Bickel The Columbus DispaTCh

Sitting on the floor of a classroom at the Dowd Education Center, Nicole Gnezda listened intently as each of the children in her art program class discussed their work.

an Everyday Hero. “Life hits us pretty hard sometimes … she turned it into a positive thing,” Winter, 91, of Worthington, said of her daughter.

The five children drew vastly different things; one boy included a drawing of a car and one girl depicted a staircase blocking her path. Gnezda knows there’s more to the children’s artwork than meets the eye.

Gnezda’s first husband, Gary Smith, died from pancreatic cancer 19 years ago and her father had multiple sclerosis. The death of her son Tony Smith in a traffic accident in 2008 at age 29 led Gnezda to her volunteer work at Dowd.

“The art reveals things that you wouldn’t talk about,” Gnezda, 65, said.

“That was really devastating,” Gnezda said of the death of her son. “But because of him, I was ready to do something. It was because of him, I think, that I wanted to do something to turn the pain and the loss into something good.”

After giving each child the opportunity to talk about their drawings, she asked them questions about why they drew their artwork a specific way. “What the artwork does is start to bring out some of the underlying stuff that we can look at and talk about,” Gnezda said. Gnezda, a resident and native of Worthington, has been volunteering since 2009 for the art program at the Dowd Educational Center. The center is run through the Homeless Families Foundation, which was established in 1986. Dowd is open to children in the foundation’s housing-first program and children in Columbus’ West Side neighborhoods who are at risk of becoming homeless. The center is an academically focused program that follows the curriculum of the Columbus City Schools. “She’s made the students feel a certain way, which allows them to open up more,” Dwayne McGrapth, the assistant director and recreation director of the Dowd Center, said of Gnezda. Her students at the Dowd Center sometimes express their innermost thoughts through their artwork. “If they have that kind of opportunity, what’s going to come out of their art is what is potent among themselves emotionally,” Gnezda said. Gnezda’s mother, Mary Winter, nominated her daughter to be

That “something good” was inspired when Gnezda recalled a Christmas one year, when her son Tony asked her to make a donation instead of giving him a present. She knew about the Dowd Center, so she made a $100 donation in her son’s name. Gnezda, who called this one of her most important memories, remembered how Tony had tears in his eyes when he learned about his mother’s gift. “When he died and I wanted to do something, I wanted to do something with the Dowd Center,” Gnezda said. Joan Campbell calls Gnezda one of her heroes. The two friends met in the third grade and Campbell said it makes perfect sense for Gnezda to spend her time volunteering at Dowd. “She’s always looking for ways to make someone’s situation better,” said Campbell, 64, of Reynoldsburg. Before volunteering at Dowd, Gnezda spent about 30 years as an art teacher in various preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges in central Ohio. She retired from teaching in 2007. “I would look at my students’ artwork, and there was so much distress and troubling imagery that a lot of people just blew off as teenage angst,” Gnezda said. “Angst is angst, it needs to be acknowledged.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Altruism in drAg

Andrew levitt, better known by many as drag queen Nina West, has been a leading benefactor for the LGBt community.

Andrew Levitt PerformAnces As ninA west hAve rAised neArLy $1 miLLion for LGBt community

By GARY SEMAN JR. ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Photo By LoRRiE CECiL ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Andrew Levitt makes sure his audience members aren’t the only ones benefiting from his shows. Levitt, who performs nationally as drag queen Nina West, quietly has given about $1 million to nonprofit organizations, mostly those that benefit children in the LGBT community. “It’s pretty incredible,” said Levitt, who lives in the Harrison West neighborhood of Columbus. “It’s overwhelming because so much of that is grass-roots fundraising. That’s how I would define it.” Levitt, 39, has been doing drag for 16 years, the last 13 as Nina West. By day, he is the media and marketing manager for Union Café and Axis Nightclub, two gay venues in the Short North, where he performs most of his shows. And every main production run ends with a charity performance. Patrons are informed of the particular charity well in advance and are very giving the night of the charity show, Levitt said. “When I started doing shows, I started having a little more control and the ability to do this and incorporate it into the shows,” he said. Levitt said he has given to organizations such as Columbus AIDS Task Force, Equitas Health, Kaleidoscope Youth Center and Camp Sunrise, which helps children living with AIDS or those affected by the disease. He also has donated to nonprofits outside of the LGBT community. 32

Giving back to the LGBT community is personal for him. “I think people do things that resonate with them,” he said. “I see a lot of people in my community alone, ignored and maybe not having access or not being recognized or acknowledged. I know when I came out I felt alone.” Levitt calls his shows “‘political pop’–fun, funny and campy, sometimes really irreverent and sometimes smart and savvy.” “At the base, I’ve tried to craft a character who is fun, loveable, smart–someone to grab a drink with or break bread with and have a meal with,” he said.

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SEMIFInalISt “I see a lot of people in my community alone, ignored and maybe not having access or not being recognized or acknowledged.”

Charity and community outreach were a big part of campus life at Denison University, where he studied theater. “Even when I was growing up, giving something back when you could was something instilled in me from the beginning,” he said. Levitt started doing drag because he was struggling getting work as an actor elsewhere. “I was just looking for opportunities to perform,” he said. He enjoys performing, even if it’s not the most lucrative avocation. Costumes, hair and makeup gobble up much of the profits. “Drag is really expensive,” he said. “I can’t tell you enough, you don’t really do this for the money.”

“I would describe Andrew as the most selfless person I’ve ever met,” said Christopher Rutter, who nominated Levitt as an Everyday Hero. “I think Andrew is a huge celebrity, not only in Columbus, but across the entire country. And when you’re given a gift like that, you can do one of two things: You can become a jerk and step all over people to get ahead, or you can do good. And he, of course, does the latter by giving back to the community and charitable life.” As Levitt’s profile grows, so does his opportunity to raise money for charity. “The larger the platform, the more you can help,” he said. “That’s really the goal.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Finalist His passion is introducing the youth of the community to music, showing them its ability to propel them wherever they aim.

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The Music Man

Marshall CheathaM Despite an arDuous battle with Diabetes, the founDer of the ColuMbus saints keeps his own life, anD the lives of area youth, Moving forwarD one DruMbeat at a tiMe.

by holly Zachariah

Photos by Tim Johnson

the coluMbus Dispatch

Dispatch Magazines

Marshall Cheatham drops his backpack onto his shoulder and slips out into the darkness. The clock in his living room hasn’t yet reached 5 a.m., but this is his lot: to rise when his Olde Towne East neighborhood is still silent, climb into his old Ford Taurus, and head south. He encounters few people on his six-minute drive down Lockbourne Road, save for a couple of patrolling Columbus Police. Cheatham, 57, prefers the solitude. It gives him time to get his mind right before he arrives at the Kidney Center of Columbus South dialysis clinic, where he will spend the next five hours tethered to a machine that pulls the toxins and excess fluid from his blood because his kidneys no longer can. “It takes over your life. Everything you do you have to work around dialysis. But you can’t let it get in your head,” he said. He looks around at the other patients in the crowded room. Many are in end-stage renal failure. Some are dying. “I’ve got to stay busy,” he said. “Otherwise, the worry? It’ll close in on you.” He could take dialysis later in the day but he has too much to do, too many people counting on him.

Marshall cheatham takes a quick break from a Columbus saints Drum & bugle Corps practice at the Grace Chapel Community Church in Westerville.

For almost four years he has visited the clinic three days every week from 5 to 10 a.m. Years ago, before gastric bypass surgery, the former juvenile probation officer weighed 512 pounds. That led to diabetes. He’s slimmer now, having shed more than 230 pounds, and otherwise healthy, the diabetes long gone. But the damage to his body was already done. SEPTEMBER 2017

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Marshall CheathaM Age: 57 Neighborhood: Olde Towne East Inspiration: His own participation in a community drumline growing up in Chicago, an experience that fuels his wish to educate and enlighten youth to the art of music and teach them that it can take them to so many places. What keeps them engaged: His family, which includes his wife, Lisa, two grown daughters, and a granddaughter (with another on the way); his love of music, and the youth-music organization he founded, the Columbus Saints Drum & Bugle Corps; love of community; and his spirituality. A challenge they may have overcome: Cheatham needs a new kidney. For almost four years, he spends five hours a day, three days a week at dialysis, tethered to life-giving machines. Forced to retire from work, he and his wife have had to adjust their personal lifestyle, and give up much, but he hasn’t ended any of his community support or work with the Saints.

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The incessant routine, combined with the anxiousness of waiting for a donor kidney from Lifeline of Ohio, where he serves as an ambassador, sharing his story to encourage organ donation, is arduous. But he doesn’t quit. A legion of aspiring musicians won’t let him.

ABOVE: Helping the

Cheatham founded the Columbus Saints Drumline (now the Columbus Saints Drum & Bugle Corps) in 2003. His passion is introducing the youth of the community to music, showing them its ability to propel them wherever they aim and its power to pull them from the uncertainty of the streets.

RIGHT: Marshall Cheatham and his wife, Lisa, inside their Olde Towne East home.

Columbus Saints keeps Cheatham’s mind from his own health problems.

It fuels Cheatham as well. His health worries fade to the back of his mind when he travels the country with the group most weekends through the summer competition season. He sleeps on air mattresses on church or school floors, or sometimes just cat-naps in the seat of a borrowed pickup truck that hauls the rented instruments.

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At the time, his oldest of two daughters was in the marching band at Eastmoor Academy High School. “Bing! That’s when the light bulb went off,” Cheatham said. He went to his pastor for counsel: Make a difference, the man told him. You know what to do. So Cheatham bought 10 sets of drumsticks. It was 2004, and he recruited six kids—his daughter among them—and they gathered every night at the neighborhood park and learned beats on wooden picnic tables. “It’s just that easy. A five-gallon bucket from Home Depot or a park bench. That’s all you need,” he said, “and you can put people on a different path.”

Cheatham started the Saints in the tradition of historically black colleges and universities’ drumlines—military-style cadences that command attention. His first six participants were AfricanAmerican. He didn’t really set out to teach only black kids, but in the neighborhoods where they played and practiced, it just turned out that way. For a decade, it remained so. Then a few years ago he hired a new music director—a white music director—and some in the group saw him as a sellout. Over time, most quit. His wife, Lisa Cheatham, said it was a painful time. “I was angry because Marshall was hurt,” she recalled. “He was brought up in a drumline, and he just wanted to give the kids in the community the same chances he was given. He doesn’t see color. He sees opportunity.” “He gets tired but he never lets you know it,” said Le Ron Carlton who, under Cheatham’s tutelage, directs the Saints, which is about 30 members strong. “He never lets us down. He built a family, not an organization.”

Growing up in the shadow of the gang-riddled Henry Horner housing project on the Near West Side of Chicago in the 1950s and ‘60s, Cheatham worked to save his own soul one drum beat at a time. Even blessed with loving grandparents who raised him in a disciplined home where education was valued and disrespect never was tolerated, Cheatham always knew he was just one idle afternoon or one bad decision from chaos. So at the age of 11, he joined the St. Andrews Hornets, a storied Chicago drumline. Among the places the group performed was the local detention center. The experience shaped him, and led him to become a juvenile-probation officer and social worker in Chicago and, after he moved in 1984, in Ohio. Working for the Ohio Department of Youth Services in some of the state’s roughest juvenile prisons, he reflected on his younger days and all that had helped him. He zeroed in on the love of family, the support of mentors, and the role of music. “I really, truly realized I was getting to these kids way too late,” he said of his work there. “They’ve already committed murder, they’ve already raped.” He wondered how he could better help them.

He persisted, and over time, the Saints matured into a competition show-style organization that now attracts teenagers and young adults from around the state. These days, Cheatham is more CEO than hands-on director, though he can occasionally be found banging on a snare when needed. Tatum Flemister is among those who learned early from Cheatham starting a decade ago. Flemister knew of the Saints’ reputation, and begged his mother to let him join. Cheatham, he said, taught him so much more than routines. He taught him how to lead, how to not let disappointment get you down, how to not let victory swell your head. “Mr. Cheatham pushes you because he sees your potential,” said Flemister, 22, who this spring graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. And when obstacles appeared, “Mr. Cheatham would tell us ‘I know it’s rough. But don’t use that as an excuse. Use that as fuel’ he would say. ‘You’re built for something better than that,’” Flemister said. “We believed it.” This fall, Cheatham wants to return to his roots and find a permanent home and some benefactors to bring music back to the children of Columbus neighborhoods. And maybe, just maybe, find a kidney donor along the way. “The fact that I’m still here means that my purpose isn’t done yet,” he said. “There’s gonna be a happy ending to my story, one with rainbows and butterflies and puppy dogs.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt angelWorks founder Ellie Hite, at a picnic for families dealing with childhood cancer at Chestnut Ridge Metro Park

“Many people don’t realize how many kids have cancer. We pay for a funeral every month for a child taken by cancer.”

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AngelWorks FoundAtion

ElliE HitE Easing tHE worst kind of pain by MArlA K. KUHlMAN thisweek coMMunity news

As a young boy was losing his battle with cancer, Ellie Hite arranged and paid for his favorite “Star Wars” characters to be part of a laser-tag party for his 7th birthday. And when Aiden Welling of Westerville later died in February, Hite’s AngelWorks Foundation covered funeral expenses and made the celebration-of-life service meaningful and joyous, said Cara Welling, Aiden’s mother. Hite, 48, said she’s excited about being nominated as an Everyday Hero because it will help raise awareness about her group and childhood cancer. September has been designated Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. “We work with kids with cancer, and our goal is to raise as much awareness about childhood cancer as we can,” she said. “Many people don’t realize how many kids have cancer. We pay for a funeral every month for a child taken by cancer. That’s probably our most important program.” Hite, a Carroll resident who works as manager at the Ohio Online Auction Co. in Gahanna, created the fund for funerals from the foundation she started in 2004. Her AngelWorks Foundation also helps provide financial support for families with a child in treatment. Hite said the foundation was born from her love of Christmas. “It was supposed to be my pet hobby for a Christmas program,” she said. “There was always one family I knew who needed it. The common denominator was there was a parent or child with a life-threatening illness.”

Photo by Jodi Miller Dispatch Magazines freelancer

est. We wanted to continue to honor him and keep our promise.” Each year, 15,700 children will be diagnosed with some form of cancer, according to CureSearch for Children’s Cancer. Across all ages, ethnic groups and socio-economics, the disease remains the leading cause of death by disease in children. Paula Aquizap, who nominated Hite, a mother of four, as an Everyday Hero, said she first became aware of AngelWorks in 2004, when her employer, ATG in New Albany, provided gifts for one of the “Project Claus” families. “More than a few tears have been shed as our staffers learn of the circumstances these families are facing,” Aquizap said. “An amazing aspect of AngelWorks is that the programs are anonymous and none of the families helped throughout the years have ever asked for assistance.” Last year, AngelWorks provided help for 68 families. Welling said it was Christmas two years ago when she received a knock at her door. “There were two boxes with my boys’ names on them,” she said. “They were so excited. This guy brought two big boxes. I asked, ‘Where did these come from?’ He said, ‘The North Pole.’ And I asked who to thank. He said, ‘Santa Claus.’ ” Welling said she later learned about AngelWorks after her son relapsed, and Hite answered a social media post about a birthday party she was planning. “Ellie contacted me and said she wanted to help,” Welling said. “Ellie did things you didn’t even know about or have to ask. She doesn’t forget about the families.”

After Hite met Joe Friend, who died in 2013 at the age of 25 after a long battle with cancer, she said the focus of the foundation changed.

Although the work of the foundation can take an emotional toll, Hite said, it keeps her motivated to do more. “Sometimes it rips your heart out,” she said. “When you see the small casket, it’s a punch in the gut.

“He was an absolutely amazing young man who touched all of my children and taught them about life and how important it is and how you should live it,” she said. “If you have one day or 50 years to live, each is as important and you need to live them to your full-

“That’s what keeps making me say, ‘That’s enough.’ Someone needs to work to change that. For every time I end up pulling over on the side of the road and having a meltdown, I get myself together and that motivates me to do more.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Michael Doody hopes his Kossuth Street community garden provides more than produce.

Planting Roots

Michael DooDy Kossuth street GarDens proviDes More than just fresh, healthy fooD

By Michael huson the columbus dispatch

Photo By Kyle RobeRtson the columbus dispatch

Michael Doody’s first hero was his father. Forgoing a night out with the guys after work, his father, Bob, would slip on his dark blue firefighter's uniform and head out to spend another Friday night at the Clinton Township firehouse, volunteering. That’s where Doody first “got the bug.” He would wake up early every Saturday to meet his parents and three siblings at the breakfast table to hear his father’s stories from the previous night. For Doody, the legacy of volunteerism and food’s ability to bring people together are in evidence at the corner of Kossuth and 17th streets, in a 30-by-30-yard plot overflowing with an eclectic array of fruits, herbs and vegetables.

a big difference when you can be friends with your neighbors."

“The roots we put in the ground for the garden are representative of the roots we are trying to establish here, among people,” Doody said.

He hopes the garden will help change the transitioning neighborhood that has for too long dealt with high crime and abandoned homes. He also hopes to purchase the land to create a working farm to bring local jobs and counteract food insecurity.

Doody, 61, founded Kossuth Street Gardens, an 11-year-old community garden, and serves as its director. The urban oasis is nestled into the northeast corner of a block owned by the Salvation Army in the Southern Orchards neighborhood, just east of German Village.

His neighbors think he is just the man for the job. Doody has developed a reputation over decades as having a talent for bringing people together. “He’s our social butterfly,” said Emily Frechette, a garden volunteer and Southern Orchards resident. “He knows everybody.”

The garden offers free food for the picking, books in its mini library, weekly cooking classes and a venue for a disarticulated neighborhood to gather on a nice day. "It's a vehicle as much as anything, to educate, to give good nutrition, to bring connectedness and empowerment to a community," he said. "It makes

Doody, a former journalist and now private investigator, volunteers outside the garden as well. He is a member of Southern Orchards Civic Association, a neighborhood watch coordinator and he coaches youth basketball at Schiller Community Center in German Village. Every year, he volunteers at the Doo Dah

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SEMIFInalISt “The roots we put in the ground for the garden are representative of the roots we are trying to establish here.”

Parade and emcees between musical performances at ComFest. He has brought a handful of volunteers to the garden, as well as various social service organizations that donate or partner with the garden, like Ohio State University’s SNAP-Ed nutrition education program. Doody also helped jumpstart the 2007 birth of Earth Day Columbus as well. The volunteer-led Earth Day service project has grown since then, attracting more than 5,000 volunteers in 2016. "It's about getting people connected, getting them interested in being involved, and making sure there is another generation that comes along with the same type of volunteer spirit," he said. "The real pleasure is not in the day-to-day of it, but in achieving something." Twelve-year-old Makhie Jones is already on board. He painted the garden's book depository, adding the words, “Today makes

a better tomorrow" to its side. He's also a regular at the Friday afternoon cooking classes, even eschewing his mother’s call announcing pizza had arrived to finish his stir fry of carrots, vinegar and rainbow chard. "I can't leave my dish," he said while topping his creation with strawberry yogurt and almonds. "That's not what a chef does." Doody doesn't wear a cape, like he imagined his father donning as he fought fires in his Saturday morning stories at the breakfast table. But his friend of 20 years, Shelle Dohn-Meier, said Doody's selfless, outgoing nature and creativity has helped garner him a reputation as a different kind of crusader in Columbus. "Anybody who is attempting to bring good food, especially to the inner city, is a hero in my book,” Dohn-Meier said. “What the garden is doing: Bringing people together down there, giving more of an awareness about healthy food and the programs they're offering. He has made it happen. That, to me, is a hero."  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “Sue is able to ... connect people with the resources in their neighborhood in a most helpful way.”

Sue Wolfe started the First Birthdays celebration for families to bring awareness to reducing infant mortality.

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Working for youth

Sue Wolfe from the firSt BirthdayS program to her fight againSt infant mortality, South Side Woman iS making a difference by ALAN FroMAN Thisweek communiTy news

Photo by Lorrie ceciL Thisweek communiTy news

For Sue Wolfe, it’s not enough to be one who simply calls attention to an issue. “It’s no good just saying, ‘Isn’t this a terrible thing,’ “ she said. “I think the important thing is trying to do something constructive, so that you’re part of the solution,” Wolfe said.

“The infant mortality rate wasn’t the highest in the city, but it is very high,” Wolfe said. “There was other work already engaging the South Side community (including the Greater Columbus Infant Mortality Task Force) and it was selected because of that synergy.”

Wolfe, 66, was nominated as one of the Dispatch Media Group’s “Everyday Heroes” in recognition of her work to address the issue of infant mortality. After participating four years ago in a Columbus Public Health initiative to reduce infant mortality, Wolfe created First Birthdays, a celebration held quarterly at the United Methodist Church on Columbus’ South Side.

Columbus City Council formed the task force at about the same time as the OEI to reduce infant mortality. In 2014 the task force made eight recommendations for how to reduce infant mortality by 40 percent and lessen the racial gap in infant health by 2020.The task force was renamed Celebrate One, and is now working to implement those recommendations.

Community residents are invited to bring their children who have reached, or are about to celebrate, their first birthdays for a party that includes cake, gifts for the children and baby supplies and gift baskets for the families. Wolfe is a deaconess at the church, which also operates Community Development for All People, a nonprofit community organization providing programs related to affordable housing, healthy eating and living and youth development for South Side residents. Her husband, John Edgar, is pastor of the church and executive director of the organization. Infant mortality “is a canary in a coal mine,” she said. “It’s a measure of the overall health of a community.” Wolfe, who moved with her husband to the South Side more than 15 years ago after starting the Free Store and founding the Church for All People, said the higher-than-average rate of infant deaths in her community has inspired her to act. She was invited in 2013 to serve on the leadership team for the Ohio Equity Institute, a partnership between nine urban Ohio communities, the Ohio Department of Health and CityMatCH, a national membership organization of city and county health departments’ maternal and child health programs and leaders. Columbus Public Health was the grantee for Columbus and chose the South Side as the area of focus.

The Community Development Group was awarded the contract to implement an initiative for the South Side. “Our primary deliverable is comprehensive reproductive health education for teens and young adults,” Wolfe said. “We are doing that with several community partners.” Anne Trinh nominated Wolfe for the Everyday Hero recognition. An epidemiologist at Columbus Public Health, Trinh said she was inspired from working with Wolfe on the OEI. “Her outlook on the challenges that residents and families face in the South Side was invaluable,” Trinh said. “She was our community representative on the task force and I don’t think we could have succeeded without her. “Sue is able to find the best way to connect people with the resources in their neighborhood in a most helpful way, so that community change is done in a very organic way,” Trinh said. “She knows how to take action.” That is demonstrated through the First Birthdays program, Trinh said. The First Birthdays program “puts life in perspective,” Wolfe said. “It helps you recognize how blessed you are and makes you want to help share that blessing with others.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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The blood banker

Joyce Guenther Lancaster woman spends her birthdays GivinG the Gift of Life and encouraGinG others to do the same. by Dave PurPura ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

Photo by Lorrie CeCiL ThisWeek CommuniTy neWs

As far as longtime Lancaster resident Joyce Guenther is concerned, her birthday is just another day. The day she really cares about on an annual basis actually varies.

“She’s met so many people affected by the fact that if blood wasn’t in supply, they wouldn’t be here today. That really humbles you.”

Every July or August for the past decade, Guenther has hosted a blood drive for her birthday. In lieu of material gifts, Guenther simply wants people to donate their time and part of themselves to those in dire need.

Guenther’s ambitious goal for her first drive on Aug. 11, 2007, was 50 units — not quite realizing how much blood that is. “You have to have appointments for maybe 65 people [to hit that goal],” she said. “You have to talk to people and approach them face-to-face. Then, they’ll do it.”

“When you get to the point where you are 40 or 50 or one of those big birthdays, you’re over the whole birthday thing,” said Guenther, 59, a Philadelphia native who has lived in Lancaster since 1989. “I was thinking about what I wanted to do. I had been a blood donor for a long time and I thought it’d be really fun to have a drive around my birthday. It’s really hard to get people to donate.” Guenther has donated roughly 130 units, or 16.25 gallons, of blood since 1977, when she was a student at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Guenther eventually earned a master’s degree in molecular biology at the University of Rochester and, in Ohio, worked for years in the office of her husband, Jim, an obstetrician in Fairfield County, as well as volunteering with the American Red Cross and various other local organizations. She now chairs the Red Cross Ohio Buckeye Region’s biomedical committee, serves on its diversity committee and visits blood drives across the region’s 27-county territory to gauge progress and emphasize the organization’s mission. Guenther also stages blood drives every May and December, and makes sure to serve cake and lunch at each. Her birthday drive this year was her 25th overall. “I can’t ever tell her how much I appreciate her not only on a professional level, but personally too,” said Wendy Yarbrough, the Red Cross’ district manager for recruitment. “We’re almost to 1,000 units at all the drives she’s conducted. That’s huge. There aren’t a lot of coordinators who get to 1,000. That’s over 3,000 potential people served. … 44

This year’s birthday blood drive was July 22 at St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Lancaster, Guenther’s home parish. Thirtytwo units were collected. “She has a passion for the community and the blood service program. The Red Cross needs that. Our paid staff is inspired by her,” said Kurt Anders, chief operating officer of the Ohio Buckeye Region, who noted that Guenther also contributes to the Red Cross financially. “She doesn’t just give her time, passion and blood,” he said. The Red Cross found itself in urgent need of blood throughout much of the summer, which Guenther said could be avoided if donors gave the maximum of six times per year, or about every eight weeks. “If all of those people who donate donated one more time per year, there wouldn’t be a blood need,” Guenther said, adding that only about 5 percent of eligible donors actually give. “There would be no shortage.” Guenther and her husband have biked in all 50 states, and now she wants to match that feat in blood. So far, she has donated in Indiana, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, in addition to Ohio. “When your next-door neighbor’s kid is in the hospital and needs blood, you are racing to give it. You can’t give it fast enough,” Guenther said. “These are real people who are in need.” 

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SEMIFInalISt “She has a passion for the community and the blood service program. The Red Cross needs that.”

Joyce Guenther celebrates her birthday every year by organizing a blood drive, which to date has contributed more than 1,000 units for the Red Cross. SEPTEMBER 2017

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Finalist “He does so much more than just talking to people and handing out stuff. He really gets into their world.”

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Beneficent BarBer

Howard warner wHetHer it’s volunteering at tHe cancer center, tHe open sHelter or for a social services provider, upper arlington man’s mission is just to Help.

by Ken Gordon the coluMbus Dispatch

Photo by Tim Johnson Dispatch Magazines

Howard Warner made small talk with the woman as her sandy-brown hair fell gently to the floor. The retired barber asked Evelyn Owens where she was born and where she went to school. Then he assured the breast-cancer patient that his wife's hair had grown back thicker than ever after her recovery from cancer. "I hope mine does too," the woman replied. Patients come to Over My Head boutique at OhioHealth Bing Cancer Center when they decide it's time to shave the hair that is rapidly falling out from chemotherapy and pick up a wig or hat. And Howard Warner is ready to help them, not just with his electric clippers but also with soothing small talk and encouraging words. “He was a very nice man,” Owens said. “I like the fact that it's all in one place (the haircut and wig) and they make you feel comfortable.” Making others comfortable is what Warner does well, over several decades and at many venues. The 76-year-old Upper Arlington resident has supported programs to help prison inmates learn the barbering trade, fed and befriended the down-and-out at the Open Shelter and connected people to desperately needed social services at the Joint Organization for Inner-City Needs (JOIN). Howard Warner, former director of the ohio State barber board, now plies his craft for cancer patients.

People who know Warner tell story after story of his acts of kindness. “He is such a good man who always has his heart in the right place,” said Margo Medwid, who attends St. Agatha Catholic Church in Upper SEPTEMBER 2017

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Howard warner Age: 76 Neighborhood: Upper Arlington Inspiration: His mother, Wilma, who overcame a difficult childhood and modeled generosity to her six children. “Looking back at why I do what I do, it’s because of what she did,” Warner said.

ABOVE: Howard

Arlington with Warner and has helped him in various efforts. “He’s the one who thinks up an idea and calls upon friends and neighbors, `Hey you want to help me do this?’ It’s an everyday thing.

What keeps him engaged: Warner said he wants to not just provide a meal or a one-time service, but to help others “find a new way.” He is particularly touched when he hears of success stories from someone that he has helped.

“He’s doing what we all should be doing: Not just talking, but walking. And it’s the way he walks that I have such admiration for.”

RIGHT: When he’s

Warner and his five siblings grew up in Newark. The six Warner children shared one bedroom and hung their clothes from nails on the walls. “We lived in that little house, but we had meals every night,” Warner said. “There’s people that had it a lot worse than we had.”

A challenge he has overcome: Between the two of them, Warner and his wife of 52 years, Joyce, have survived four bouts of cancer (two apiece).

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Warner is a soothing presence at the Over My Head boutique at OhioHealth’s Bing Cancer Center.

His father, Al, worked as a barber into his 80s. His mother, Wilma, overcame a tough childhood—she lived in an orphanage for two years and had to work full-time at age 14.

not pampering cancer patients, Warner volunteers at JOIN, a socialservice agency on the East Side that provides food and other essential items to lowincome families.

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grams. Five correctional facilities have barber schools to help inmates learn a trade and be employable upon their release. “He was very helpful in helping us establish and maintain barber schools,” said Dwight Anstaett, who directs the career technical education program for the prison system. “He was a cheerleader for what we’re trying to do to help inmates.” Though he had been volunteering for years, Warner said his battles with cancer strengthened his resolve to help others. He has survived two bouts of colon cancer, in 1994 and 2014. His wife has fought two battles with breast cancer. He was deeply affected, he said, by an experience after he was first diagnosed. “I was telling a nurse that I had spent three years jumping out of airplanes and I had been around the world, but I was scared,” he said. “And she said, `Why?’ and I said, `because I’m dying of cancer.’ “And she told me, `You’re not dying, you’re alive,’ and she opened my eyes to the fact that you’re alive and you had better enjoy every day.”

Warner said his mother helped anybody who needed it. “She had a pretty humble beginning of her own, and looking back at why I do I do, it’s because of what she did.” After high school, Warner served three years in the Army with the 82nd Airborne Division, then went to barber school. In 1964, he opened Howard’s Barber Shop on Lane Avenue. There, over the next 36 years, he cut the hair of several Ohio State football coaches (including Earle Bruce and Jim Tressel) and made many of the friendships and connections that would help him in his charitable efforts. “Our granddaughter once said, `Grandma, does he know everybody in the world?’ and I said, `Almost,’” said Joyce Warner, Howard’s wife of 52 years. “But that’s just who he is. I don’t mind.” One of Warner’s first volunteering experiences was cutting the hair of orphaned or homeless children at the former Hannah Neil House.

Warner has been shaving cancer patient’s heads at Over My Head for five years. He told the story of cutting the hair of an 11-year-old girl recently. When he finished, Bethany Golden, the boutique owner, put a wig with a streak of red hair on the girl's head. “She said, `I’ll be the prettiest girl in school,’” Warner said, tearing up at the memory. “I mean, you see these kids. . . .” Warner left the state barber board in 2014 and started volunteering at JOIN soon after. The social-service agency operates out of a building on East Main Street. Five days a week, they accept walkins who need food, shelter, clothing or other assistance. Each day, about 10 volunteers spend a four-hour shift meeting with people. On a recent day, Warner sat in a small office across from a steady stream of visitors who had waited in the lobby to be helped. He helped arrange an eye examination for one woman and gave her a sheet that listed dozens of agencies, shelters and food pantries where she could get further help. He gave several bus passes to a young man who had recently landed a job, to tide him over until his first paycheck arrived. He also sent the man to JOIN’s clothing room to pick out some appropriate work attire.

About 30 years ago, he began serving dinner once a month at the Open Shelter along with other members of St. Agatha.

“He’s amazing, and I’m not blowing smoke,” said Lisa Keita, director of JOIN. “He does so much more than just talking to people and handing out stuff. He really gets into their world.”

“He knows all the people, he knows their names and their history,” Medwid said. “He’s always clapping them on the back, treating them like humans should be treated, not like a street person like some of us do.”

Sister Sharon Baldy, the assistant of director of JOIN, said, “I’ve never seen a man who can get into what a person is here for and look him in the eyes and say, `I’m going to help you,’ and he’ll do that, no matter what it is.”

Warner closed his barber shop in 2002 and spent the next 12 years as the director of the Ohio State Barber Board, which oversees the trade’s licensing, standards and inspections. In that capacity, he was a strong advocate for the state’s prison pro-

Warner said his goal is not just to provide people temporary help. He proudly recounts success stories of those he helped, including one man who now owns his own company. And he has no plans to stop volunteering. “I want to not just feed them, but help them find a new way,” he said.  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “Everyone has a different story and different needs. I just get to know them.”

Patti Bernett turned her own life around and now helps inmates do the same.

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The PaThfinder

Patti Bernett Former addict has led suPPort grouP at delaware county jail For 14 years by Sheridan hendrix The Columbus DispaTCh

Patti Bernett was attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting every day 15 years ago. A 28-year addiction to alcohol and opioids had brought her to her breaking point. It was during one of those meetings that she noticed the woman facilitating. She listened to the way she spoke to the group, the way she worked with them as individuals. Bernett wanted to lead like her. Within a year, she helped organize the Delaware County jail’s AA support group for women. Fourteen years later, Bernett still leads the group every Tuesday. Through her work with the jail, Bernett, 54, also began working as a forensic peer specialist at the Center of Vocational Alternatives (COVA) in Delaware. “It’s been a journey,” Bernett said. When an inmate at the county jail is ready for release, Bernett works with the individual one-on-one to develop a re-entry plan, a sort of road map back to living a normal life. “Everyone has a different story and different needs,” Bernett said. “I just get to know them.” Bernett helps meet her client’s needs at every level: from securing housing and jobs to offering rides and emotional support. Her job is far from a 9-to-5 gig, though. Driving the streets of Delaware in what she calls her “Gypsy Jeep,” stocked full of hygiene products and extra clothing, Bernett gives whatever she has—most of which she buys out of her own pocket—to those who need it most. Her phone buzzes constantly, letting her know that someone somewhere needs her help. Having once walked in their shoes, Bernett is in every sense a peer to her clients, said Tracy Whited, spokeswoman for the Delaware County Sheriff’s office and a longtime friend of Bernett. “She’s proof that you can turn it around and stay clean,” Whited said. Her work is more than just helpful—it saves lives. “I truly believe in my heart that many of Patti’s clients would be dead if it weren’t for her,” said Kassie Neff, program coordinator for the Delaware County jail.

Photo by Jonathan Quilter The Columbus DispaTCh

David Stover knows that. A former alcoholic who Bernett lovingly refers to as her “street husband,” Stover, 51, was living under a bridge when he first met Bernett. Initially, he sharply refused any help from her, though she would still leave him a cigarette and a bottle of water whenever she saw him. Stover eventually started to let Bernett into his world. She helped him get into AA and find an apartment. Things were going well until a series of events brought Stover back to the bottle. One day, Bernett found Stover face down on his bed. His blood-alcohol content was at a lethal 0.535, more than six times the legal limit of .08 for an impaired driver. She called an ambulance and immediately started working to find him treatment. “Patti saved my life,” said Stover, who has been sober for a few months. “I wouldn’t be alive without her.” Brandon Mather, 42, said Bernett has been there for him, too. The two started working together after Mather’s heroin overdose landed him back in jail. Mather’s father died while he was serving time for a previous sentence. He wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. When he was finally released, it was Bernett who was waiting for him. “She’s done more for me than any family member has,” said Mather, who has been clean for months. Bernett helped find Mather stable housing and a job that would accommodate his disability from a brain injury. “No one in Delaware thinks I’m really worth anything, that there’s no hope for me,” he said. “Patti has hope.” Bernett said she only does what she hopes someone would do for her daughters if they ever needed help. “I’m unconditional,” she said. “I’ll meet you where you’re at.” To the women in the jail’s support group, Bernett reminds them that where they are right now is only temporary. Life, she says, is a journey. “When you walk out, the gift you get is that you get to turn your page,” she said. “You get to rewrite your story.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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The beauTifier

RobeRt ShyRigh gRove City man CleanS hiS StRetCh of the woRld Step by Step by andrew Keiper the columbus dispatch

You have to drive out past factories and soybean fields to get to Robert Shyrigh’s neck of the woods, where you’ll probably find him working in his garden or walking the country mile of Big Run Road East near Grove City. He’s lived at his home for over 40 years, and every morning for nearly two decades he’s walked the mile from Gantz Road to the bridge that runs over Scioto Big Run river picking up litter and beautifying the stretch little by little. “You see him spring, summer, winter, fall—all the seasons,” said Linda Hull, Shyrigh’s neighbor. Hull has known Shyrigh since 2010, occasionally joining him on his walks and stopping by to chat while he tends his grapevines. She describes him as selfless, humble and constant—a mainstay in the sleepy neighborhood. A man of routine, the 74-year-old wakes before daylight, usually around 5 a.m. He drinks coffee on his porch, watching the wildlife arise around him. He’s usually up early enough to see “the bats still whirring” in the dawn sky. Following that, he takes to the road for exercise and trash pickup. “It’s a morning accomplishment and everybody should have something like that every day,” Shyrigh said. “It makes you feel better.” The routine is a remnant of his time in the Army, where he served during the Cuban Missile Crisis and John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It’s clear Shyrigh holds the experience near his heart. “That’s vintage 1963,” Shyrigh said as he pulled his sleeve up to reveal an old military tattoo. Shyrigh said the daily cleaning of his neighborhood evolved after he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and exercise became more important. Although he walked regularly before, walking and picking up litter became a daily ritual after his diagnosis. “We all live downstream when litter and stuff is concerned,” he said. “What I’m doing is just scratching the surface.” 52

Photo by Fred Squillante the columbus dispatch

Hull and Gene Sims, another longtime neighbor, disagree. They see the dividends of Shyrigh’s selfless work. They know how pivotal he is to their stretch of road. “He’s sort of anonymous, but yet, you know that his heart’s big,” Hull said. “I don’t think there’s anything he won’t pick up and dispose of.” Shyrigh said most of what he picks up is run-of-the-mill litter: fast food waste, empty beer bottles and cans, trash bags. But his gloved hands also carefully grasp drug paraphernalia, syringes included. Occasionally he’ll call the city to come and remove larger and more hazardous items, such as discarded mattresses. Every once in a while, though, Shyrigh said he’ll find some “ungodly objects.” There was the time he found a safe split open like a banana along the bank of the Scioto Big Run—it took a city crew equipped with an excavator to remove that one. The most harrowing thing he’s seen along his stretch of road, however, was the body of a woman who had overdosed. Shyrigh was working in the garden when others driving by first noticed her. Besides the cleanup efforts, the veteran adores his garden and three adult children. This summer he’s growing tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, squash, and of course, his staple grapevines. His children, two boys and girl, followed in his footsteps and work for area utility companies. They’re fourth generation utility workers; Shyrigh was employed by the Columbus’ Division of Power for 34 years. It all comes back to family for Shyrigh, who thinks “that can be true happiness.” When he and his wife, now deceased, decided to stake their claim on Big Run Road East, they wanted a little bit of elbow room to set down roots. For years, his humble abode was the center of the neighborhood, with kids passing through constantly to play with his kids and camp near the river across the street. “My wife and I used to solve all the world’s problems sitting out here snapping green beans,” Shyrigh said. 

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SEMIFInalISt “We all live downstream when litter and stuff is concerned. What I’m doing is just scratching the surface.”

Robert Shyrigh has turned his morning walk into an effort to keep his corner of Grove City litter-free. SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt “It’s that gratifying moment when you see a student has figured it out.”

Cindy Rieman, a retired kindergarten teacher, organized the allvolunteer Hilliard Villagers reading program to give schoolchildren a boost.

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It takes a vIllage

Cindy Rieman RetiRed teaCheR bRings volunteeRs togetheR to give hilliaRd students a Reading boost

by rAChel duthie the columbus dispatch

Cindy Rieman doesn’t want people to think she’s a hero. Surrounded by a mountain of books, worksheets and toys, she doesn’t think volunteering her Wednesday afternoon to help a child read is particularly notable. Nor does she think a tray full of Jell-O powder is any unique way of showing someone how to see words. “Can you spell ‘away’ for me?” she asked Lily, a first-grader with whom she’s worked with for a year. In big, sprawling letters, Lily traced the word in the powder on the tray, occasionally shaking the board like an Etch-a-Sketch to make every letter fit. It took several attempts to get the “Y” just right, but when she did, Rieman, 65, smiled, watching as Lily used her finger to scoop the orange, sugary powder off the tray and into her mouth.

Photo by AdAm CAirns the columbus dispatch

attention, but didn’t receive a specialized program, they typically fell through the cracks and had lifelong problems in reading and comprehension. With the support of her church, Scioto Ridge Methodist, and a donation of reading materials from her friend, Jan Tedeschi, Hilliard Villagers was born. Three days a week, different volunteers pull a student out of the classroom for an hour-long individual reading session. Students read books and do word activities, like spelling sentences using magnets or writing on a white board. Three to four students are helped at each school every week. “The teachers say the confidence the kids have is what is so important, and it goes up,” said Rieman. “When they’re in reading group now, instead of just sitting there, they’re participating and they say ‘I can do that’ and ‘I can say that word’ and that, to me, is such a big factor in why I do this.”

“It’s that gratifying moment when you see a student has figured it out,” she said. “It’s so nice and connecting, it’s hard to explain.”

The program has grown from a couple volunteers to 21. Anyone can be a volunteer. Most are retirees Rieman met through her church.

Friends describe Rieman, the creator of Hilliard Villagers, an all-volunteer reading program for elementary school students, as kind, loving, patient and, most importantly, a champion for children.

If you are looking for information on the program, you’ll have a hard time finding it. The program can’t be found online, and there is no information about it around any of the schools. Most of the time, parents do not know who is teaching their child.

Named after the African proverb, “It takes a whole village to raise a child,” Hilliard Villagers is designed to serve students who struggle with reading, but do not qualify for reading services. It currently has volunteers in Ridgewood, Britton and Scioto Darby elementary schools in the Hilliard School District.

“It isn’t for the glory,” said Vicky Berkemeyer, a Villager volunteer. “She [Rieman] is just extremely modest. She doesn’t see how much her efforts impact so many other people’s lives, and I mean not just the children, but with the positive experiences she gives to the adult volunteers as well.”

The program started in 2012, the year Rieman retired from teaching. Despite enjoying her time off, she needed her “kid fix,” along with a solution to help teachers struggling to meet the state’s reading expectations for kindergartners and firstgraders. Rieman said she saw that if a student needed extra

But for Rieman, the children and volunteers are the true heroes. “When I think of people that are heroes, I think of people that are sacrificing something. I don’t think I have sacrificed anything. In fact I think I’ve gained,” she said. “I gained the chance to teach these kids, and I also gained the amazing opportunity of meeting all these awesome volunteers.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Hair and Care

Beth Fleshman ColumBus hair stylist opens doors and sCissors For Charity

By Kayla Beard the columbus dispatch

Photo By eric alBrecht the columbus dispatch

Every other Monday, Beth Fleshman totes a supply bag with her mustache-patterned hair clippers and bright, colorful scissors to the Columbus Ronald McDonald House. In a little teal room with salon fixtures, Fleshman provides free haircuts for those staying at the house while their child or sibling receives treatment at nearby Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “It’d been so long since I had done anything for myself,” said Bekah Hale, 46, of Oakland, California. "You’re at a high level of stress because all these things are kind of on your mind at one time." Mrs. Hale's family stayed at the Columbus Ronald McDonald House several times while her daughter Rachel, now 23, was a patient at Children’s. "They told me about this awesome woman who cut their hair," Rachel Hale said of her family. "My grandmother couldn't stop raving." “The Ronald McDonald House, that is near and dear to my heart,” said Fleshman, 32, who has regularly volunteered with the organization for nearly five years and sometimes serves as a coordinator. When her sister, a full-time staff member at the local Ronald McDonald House, suggested she give haircuts to families staying there, doing so seemed an easy way for the Columbus-born cosmetologist to give back. “I’m not gonna be, like, swinging a hammer and putting up a house most likely," she said. "I just fell in love with it.” 56

Beth Fleshman knows that a little pampering can go a long way for those families at the Ronald McDonald house struggling with an ill child.

“Beth Fleshman is this incredible person,” said Sarah Jacob, Community Services director for the American Red Cross of Central Ohio, who nominated her friend Fleshman to be an Everyday Hero. "She’s this petite little thing, tattoos and a nose ring ... bright blue hair," Jacob said. "Just this incredible spirit with a big heart and you would never know it unless you talk to her." "She has this really genuine smile," said Bekah Hale, who asked a then-green-haired Fleshman to cut her daughter's hair once after a surgery. "It was just perfect timing," Rachel said. "I felt refreshed." "She helped Rachel kind of keep her identity," Mrs. Hale said. "She’s just this little light."

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SEMIFInalISt “I want to encourage everyone to do good, whatever that may be.”

The family returned to see Fleshman each time Rachel returned to the hospital—even when her doctor moved to Kentucky—a tradition which she said has been a bright spot in hard times. "We've had so much fun messing with my hair," Rachel said. "If I need to vent ... she's there to listen." Because of her experiences in Columbus, Mrs. Hale said she started volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House in her own California city, which she said she loves doing. Stories like hers are one reason Fleshman volunteers. "Feeling the way that I do, I want others to feel like that," Fleshman said. "I want to encourage everyone to do good, whatever that may be." "She doesn’t need a gold star [or] a pat on the back," Jacob said of Fleshman. "She truly wants to help."

On top of her stylist job, volunteer service and helping her husband, Josh, run their own commercial cleaning business. Fleshman opens her doors to touring musicians. She said her husband's own experience as a musician who's utilized RYFO — a Christian non-profit which connects touring bands with host homes — made her want to do more. "You get a group of guys or a group of people in a band for 12 hours on the road, the last thing they want to do is sleep in a parking lot," Fleshman said. Fleshman said making time for helping others is what keeps her going. "Whatever people’s schedules are," she said, "there’s always time to find something good for you to be able to do — something that’s going to benefit others."  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Finalist “You don’t have to have a ballroom full of people [and] you don’t have to have a black-tie event ... You can just open your home”

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Feeding the hungry

Tricia Keels The Bexley residenT’s “souper heroes” iniTiaTive has conTriBuTed 100,000 meals To The local hunger-relief sysTem.

by EriCa ThoMPSon coluMbus alive

Photo by rob hardin Dispatch Magazines

“Souper Heroes is a beautiful accident.” That’s how Bexley resident Tricia Keels concisely summarized the inspiration that, five years ago, gave birth to her initiative to feed the hungry in Columbus. The purpose, “to have fun with food and community while providing for those who don’t have enough of either,” is just as simple. And so is the process. Each year, from October through May, Keels hosts dinners in bars across the city. Volunteers bring in homemade soups in slowcookers and serve guests, who are encouraged to make donations that benefit hunger-relief organizations. But what Keels has achieved isn’t so simple. Through her efforts, more than $20,000 has been raised for organizations like the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, Neighborhood Services, Inc., GRIN (Gahanna Residents In Need), the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resources Center and the Bishop Griffin Center. That’s enough to provide some 100,000 meals for Columbus hunger relief. Beyond filling empty stomachs, she’s helped fill lives with an immeasurable emotional impact on attendees and soup-makers. Her influence now extends beyond central Ohio, as she’s inspired inquiries from people around the world who, too, would like to host their own “Souper Heroes” events. “[It’s] an opportunity for community to come together … to be reminded how blessed and grateful we should be about everything that we have,” Keels said.

tricia Keels founded Souper heroes with a slow cooker and a desire to help fight hunger in the community.

The mother of three was reminded of her good fortune one night five years ago, while she was putting her then 7-year-old son Adam to bed. “He’s climbing up the ladder to the top bunk and he’s complaining that he’s hungry,” Keels said. He’d already had dinner, she said, but was “stalling,” and likely wanted a sweet snack. “All of a sudden I just had this flash that there was a mom in Columbus and she was putting her child to bed who was saying the exact same things as Adam … but those cries were real.” SEPTEMBER 2017

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Tricia Keels Age: 44 Neighborhood: Bexley Who inspires you?: "My dad. I've always been inspired at how he looks at a situation with a curious and learning mindset. I've seen many doors open in my life, like Souper Heroes, by approaching life this way, too."

Photos courtesy CHrIS KeelS PHOTOGrAPHY (2)

What keeps you engaged?: "Gratefulness. When I focus on all the good in our lives instead of what we don't have, it makes giving and doing and living so much easier."

Her original slow cooker now serves as the donation bucket at Souper Heroes events. Since starting the organization in 2012, Souper Heroes has generated more than $20,000 for Mid-Ohio Foodbank and others.

“I had food in my cupboard … but somewhere there was someone doing that and there was nothing in the cupboard,” Keels said. “I just decided I was going to do something.” Though that unexpected “moment of bravery and clarity” pushed Keels into action—she had the first Souper Heroes gathering planned one week later — it was just the first of many catalysts. Another was Keels’ own love for cooking. She was regularly sharing new recipes over the phone with her sister, who lives in Chicago. The duo’s shared passion led to a food-themed radio show, through which they met Martha Bayne, creator of the 60

Soup & Bread weekly community meals in the Windy City. “I went out to Chicago and participated in her event and … it was just super attractive,” said Keels, who decided she wanted to duplicate the concept in Columbus. She let the idea simmer for months, but continued to be inspired by Adam, who asked if the family could host a restaurant night in the backyard. Keels agreed and the event, featuring Adam’s menu of pancakes, salad, sliders and attempted wood-fire pizzas, drew 40 people and generated donations enough for a gift to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.

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Photos by Tim Johnson (3)

Keels, surrounded by friends and family, set up a fundraising “backyard restaurant” in August.

“It was that experience of watching all these people come together that showed me that you don’t have to have a ballroom full of people [and] you don’t have to have a black-tie event,” Keels said. “You can just open your home, or you can open up a Souper Heroes [event].” The first “Super Heroes” gathering debuted in October 2012 at Woodland’s Tavern to a packed house. But the numbers fell for a second attempt. “You know you can get all your friends to come to the first one … but the second one was election night,” Keels said. “Nobody came.” Instead of being dissuaded, however, she redoubled her efforts, spreading the word through Twitter before launching souperheroes.org, which provides details for interested participants. “I would say I’ve attended probably 15 [or] 20 [events],” said Ivina Dell, who met Keels through a carpool for their sons’ soccer team. “People were just so excited to be there. … It’s not often that you see crowds of people getting up and talking to people they don’t know, but it was like a mixer. So it just blew my mind.” “We need to get out of our comfort zone [and] we need to go commune with people we don’t normally talk to,” Keels said. “Dining together is an intimate thing and when you go out and you do it, you realize that there are people outside of your circle that are totally worth knowing, and that’s why I do it.” Throughout the years, Souper Heroes has gained support from the owners of The Kitchen, a participatory dining concept, as well as acclaimed local chef Ed Kowalski, who helped launch the Souper Heroes’ first chili cook-off, and a number of Columbus food trucks for a Food Truck February event.

By season four, Keels began recruiting guest hosts. “Super Heroes was getting too big for me to handle,” she said, “and I was also getting calls and emails from around the world asking how people could do it, and I didn’t have anything to give them.” So she developed a starter packet, which recently was to be added for download on the website, and supported the new hosts by running the events with them. “My hope is, moving forward into season six, there will be independent hosts doing it all over Columbus, all over the country [and] all over the world,” she said. “Those of us who are in the work, we definitely want to see [Keels] succeed,” said Mid-Ohio Foodbank network training and resource coordinator Ann Miller-Tobin. “I think it’s great for other people to see there are other people out there doing this work. … It can be just as impactful coming from somebody like Tricia as it can be coming from somebody with the backing like Mid-Ohio Foodbank.” Miller-Tobin also said the fun, social nature of Souper Heroes helps inform millennials about the hunger issue. “It’s a really great way to outreach to the younger generation and get them interested in the social concern and becoming a future volunteer, either at one of the pantries or soup kitchens or with the Mid-Ohio Foodbank,” she said. Keels agrees that every contribution is valuable. “I am not a social worker,” she said. “I don’t know how many times people would say to me, ‘Oh, that’s fine and good, but you’re not solving the problem.’ I know I’m not solving the problem, but I’m contributing to the solution. … I’m just going to give what I can give … [and] I’m going to count success as showing up.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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SEMIFInalISt VEtMotorsports founder Peter Cline, at the MidOhio Sports Car Course in lexington, Ohio

“In the military you have this culture: The risk-taking, the adrenaline, is parallel to motorsports culture.”

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Fast cars For veterans

Peter Cline injury forCes former motorsPorts driver to Change direCtions. he’s glad it did. and so are many others by Chloe Teasley columbus ceo

Photo by Tim Johnson dispatch magazines

Peter Cline didn’t plan to trade a profession in motorsports for nonprofit work. Yet that’s exactly where the road took him. His organization, VETMotorsports, hooks up injured post-9/11 veterans with opportunities in motorsports—anything from working on two- or four-wheeled vehicles in the pit to driving them on the speedway. The idea for VETMotorsports came from therapies he saw being done in the United Kingdom.

and corporate sponsorship is routed directly to the needs of the veterans participating, covering things like lodging, food and gas. The remaining 15 cents goes to things like web hosting, postage, printing and personal items for the veterans, said Cline. “(We) try to make it 100 percent at no burden to the veteran,” he said. VETMotorsports will not host an event for a veteran if it cannot cover all the costs.

As Cline, 49, was first trying out the idea of involving veterans in his races, a series of events would change the course of his life. Just as Cline was given more funding to go from semi-pro to professional driving, he was severely injured in a qualifying race, suffering a broken collarbone and rib, a concussion and mangling the ACL in his left knee.

This nonclinical therapy for veterans is worth the personal strain for Cline, who also has a paying job at the Ohio Department of Public Safety, Motorcycle Ohio. His vacation time gets burned up on races he attends. “My career with the state has probably suffered as my passion lies with the reward of helping our heroes,” he said. “This dedication has resulted in the possible loss of opportunity for more responsibility and promotion. Admittedly, this has ended up being a bit of a blessing as my bandwidth can then be dedicated to this higher cause.”

“I had money, so I had to make the decision of either racing or creating a nonprofit,” Cline said. “It really became a legacy position—how did I want to be known? Did I want to be known as a racer who had this really cool idea, did it for a couple of events and then did nothing else? Or did I want to form a nonprofit that could really transform lives? I chose the latter.” The usefulness of motorsports to veterans may not be intuitive to those who don’t understand military culture. In fact, when Cline first presented the idea to some veterans’ organizations, he said they thought he was off his rocker. It wasn’t until they met with him that they became persuaded. “In the military you have this culture: The risk-taking, the adrenaline, is parallel to motorsports culture. When you get transitioned out of the military, especially if you get injured, it’s doubly hard. You don’t have a mission, so to speak, so you’re just kind of lost in the abyss. … We’re bringing in some of the military culture aspects so assimilation into civilian culture is easy, it isn’t abrupt,” he explained. Since its creation, VETMotorsports has helped more than 160 veterans and their families nationwide in over 60 events. With an operational budget of less than $40,000 a year, no one gets paid. Instead, 85 cents of every dollar from donors, campaigns

And while VETMotorsports is more fulfilling than his day job, sacrificing time with his family takes a toll, as Cline has had to do all the work for the nonprofit during his time off work. But Cline is not interested in taking all the credit. Instead, he said the success of VETMotorsports is due, in large part, to the unpaid volunteers and board of directors also supporting it. “I can’t do it without my board of directors,” Cline said. “I know this [story] is about me being [an Everyday Hero], but there is a team of people behind me that gets it done. I couldn’t do it without them.” Cline’s unexpected and uncertain route in life has been fulfilling, regardless of obstacles on the track. “For me, this whole thing has been so transformative” he said. “This extremely rewarding thing that I’ve done—I had no idea it would be like this when I started. I’ve just kept my head down and I’ve just done it, and I don’t have a lot of time to reflect on it. But when I do reflect on it, it’s pretty overwhelming.”  SEPTEMBER 2017

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Friend to Pets oF the homeless

Connie SwaCkhammer woman giveS SeCond ChanCeS to often-overlooked animalS in need by Elaina Wilson columbus monthly

Connie Swackhammer had never given much thought to the homeless community in and around Columbus until a few years ago, when her son, Christian, asked to give their Donatos pizza to a homeless man on their way home after picking it up. Looking back, she admits that simple moment changed her life forever. Inspired by her son’s compassion, Swackhammer, 64, cofounded Faithful Forgotten Best Friends (FFBF) seven years ago. The organization provides basic veterinary care and food for the pets of Columbus’ low-income and homeless communities on a weekly basis, a mission that was unique among nonprofits in the Midwest at the time of its creation. FFBF currently serves the West and South sides of Columbus due to their higher levels of need, but Swackhammer hopes to expand. As executive director of FFBF, Swackhammer spends every Tuesday overseeing volunteers and making sure that each of the animals receives the care they need. “People ask me all the time, ‘Doesn’t doing this work make you sad?’ ” she said. “No,” she quickly answered, because she knows she’s helping people and their pets every week. The FFBF veterinary clinic, located in the back of the Holy Family Church Parish Center at 584 W. Broad St. in Franklinton, isn’t much different than any other vet’s office. Two volunteers check clients in at the front desk (the organization is run entirely by volunteers). FFBF also keeps complete records of all clients and their pets. (The clients need to meet certain residency and income restrictions in order to receive free care for their pets.) “We even have electronic records now,” Swackhammer said. “This is great for when someone calls me to ask about an animal. I can just look up their information, even when I’m at home, too.” Services are provided by the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine’s vets and fourth-year veterinary students, which partnered with FFBF a year ago. Dr. Kim West, a veteri64

Photo by Tim Johnson dispatch magazines

narian at Health and Harmony Animal Hospital in Grandview, also helps out with the clinic’s veterinary care. Rustin Moore, dean of OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, who nominated Swackhammer as an Everyday Hero, met her two years ago, when he was working on expanding the outreach veterinary programs for fourth-year students. He wanted to expose students to new and diverse situations, and FFBF was the perfect fit. “A lot of homeless people have mental health issues and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, so interacting with their pets actually helps them,” he said. “[Swackhammer] constantly works day-in and day-out to be an advocate for this issue and for the wellbeing of these animals.” Most of Faithful Friends Best Friends’ 20 regular volunteers have been at FFBF since the beginning. “We really are a tight-knit family,” Swackhammer said. FFBF also distributes thousands of pounds of pet food at the clinic to more than 150 families in need every two weeks with the help of Blue Buffalo, a pet food company. “We also go into the homeless camps to treat animals on the spot,” Swackhammer said. “Often that is for regular vaccinations, rabies, infections, fleas and ticks, and we will test for heartworm as well. We also provide flea and heartworm medicine free of charge to our clients.” “Connie works so hard to make the experience a great one for each and every volunteer,” said Laurie Millward, an assistant professor at OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine and a FFBF volunteer since January 2016. “This way, the pets of the homeless benefit from our help, but the volunteers also benefit from this unique and life-changing experience.” When Swackhammer isn’t donating her time and efforts at FFBF, she often photographs dogs at local animal shelters to help their chances of finding a home. “Just remember to always help when you can,” Swackhammer said. “Always remember what you saw and always continue to pay it forward.” 

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EvEryday HEroEs of cEntral oHio SEPTEMBER 2017

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8/24/17 4:13 PM

SEMIFInalISt Connie Swackhammer, left, with patron Martha Eltzroth and her dog, aggie. Swackhammer founded Faithful Forgotten Best Friends to help homeless and low-income people care for their pets.

“We also go into the homeless camps to treat animals on the spot.”

SEPTEMBER 2017

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8/24/17 3:27 PM

Heroes or just human. At the end of the day it’s all about family and home.

The Living Room Experts. BRICE ROAD | POLARIS | TUTTLE CROSSING

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8/22/17 4:08 PM