Dispatch Media Group - Everyday Heroes of Central Ohio 2019

Y A D Y EVER

S E O R HE sts i l a n i f i m & 20 se s t s i l a in hio eet the 5 f r in Central O

M

e who make lif

bette

A Dispatch Media Group publication

$7.50 | 2019

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Be an EVERYDAY HERO for our community!

Help strengthen central Ohio by supporting time-sensitive projects of local nonprofits. columbusfoundation.org/bettertogether

No credit card fees through 2019!

JOIN US, AND LET’S BE BETTER TOGETHER!

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Saluting Our Everyday Heroes

We’ve Got Our Members’ Backs!

We’re proud to support our heroes in our community!

Since 1935 CME has been helping our members reach their financial goals!

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Mortgages • Health Savings Accounts Home Equity Loans • Insurance & Investments Checking & Savings • Certificates and Low Rate Auto Loans Money Markets

Clintonville - 4545 N. High St. Downtown - 365 S. 4th St. Hilliard - 4099 Trueman Blvd.

Pickerington- 1017 Refugee Rd. Westerville - 428 S. State St.

888.224.3108 • 614.224.8890 • www.cmefcu.org

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Everyday Heroes

Everyday

Heroes

A Dispatch Media Group publication

of Central Ohio Welcome to the 2019 class of Everyday Heroes, who quietly work to heal, unite and improve our communities.

62 E. Broad St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 614-461-5236

President

2019

Bradley M. Harmon

Publisher/Dispatch Magazines Ray Paprocki

In the spring, we asked for nominations to recognize members of the Columbus area whose extraordinarily selfless acts set them apart in these divisive times.

EDITORIAL Editor Alan Miller

After reviewing the nominations, our panel of judges selected five finalists and 20 semifinalists.

Each will be honored at a luncheon on Oct. 1 at COSI, with one finalist being named the Dispatch Media Group Hero. We are grateful to our sponsors—the Columbus Foundation, the United Way of Central Ohio, COSI and CME Federal Credit Union—for supporting our third annual event.

To highlight the achievements of these Everyday Heroes, we also created this special publication through the combined efforts of The Columbus Dispatch, ThisWeek Community News and Dispatch Magazines.

You will learn about a Hilliard resident who engages young people in a Hilltop housing complex; the director of a ministry who helps drug addicts recover; a volunteer who feeds hungry school children; and many more.

We are indebted to these Everyday Heroes for making such a significant difference in our community.

Contributing writers Kevin Corvo Ben Deeter Ceili Doyle Nate Ellis Alan Froman Suzanne Goldsmith Ken Gordon Andrew King Marla K. Kuhlman Michael Lee Michelle Michael Olivia Minnier

Contributing editors Lee Cochran Dave Ghose Emma Henterly Kelly Lecker

Brittany Moseley Massillon Myers Ashton Nichols Henry Palattella Rita Price Gary Seman Jr. Sarah Sole Tanisha Thomas Erica Thompson Ellen Wagner Nicholas Youngblood Holly Zachariah

Contributing photographers Rob Hardin Eric Albrecht Adam Cairns Tim Johnson Lorrie Cecil Kyle Robertson Shane Flanigan Fred Squillante

DESIGN & PRODUCTION Bradley M. Harmon

Ray Paprocki

President Dispatch Media Group

Publisher Dispatch Magazines

Production and design director Craig Rusnak Designer Michaela Schuett

MARKETING

Marketing director Eric Wygle

• SPONSORS:

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Everyday Heroes is published

by GateHouse Media, LLC. All contents of this magazine are copyrighted © 2019, 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.

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INSPIRING

COSI Science Festival 2019

THE NEXT

GENERATION OF HEROES.

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•

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It’s amazing the effect COSI’s eye-opening experiences can have on a person. So find out what’ll spark your family’s imagination at cosi.org.

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finalists

58

24

46

12

36

Imran Malik

Zerqa Abid

Tracy Kronk

Activist Mother

The Food Fairy

Chrisanne Gordon

Austin Hill

Shining a Light

Offering a Voice

Leading by Example

Photo composite by Rob Hardin and Michaela Schuett

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EVERYDAY HEROES AWARDS

CELE B RA T I ON 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 extraordinary selfless acts set them apart in these divisive times.

JOIN US FOR A LUNCHEON HONORING 25 EXTRAORDINARY INDIVIDUALS! COSI

OCT. 1

11:30 AM TO 1:30 PM

TICKETS AT DISPATCH.COM/HEROESTICKETS Individual tickets are $25 and tables of eight are available for $175.

PRESENTED BY

SPONSORS

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8

32

44

Semifinalists Hamdi Yusuf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Carrie Leigh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Peggy Osborne Rice. . . . . . . 50

Mindy Atwood . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Khaleeqa Sadiika. . . . . . . . . . 30

Abby Lewis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Aaron Westbrook . . . . . . . . . . 16

Billy and Lorena Smith. . . . . 32

David McIntyre. . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Inna Simakovsky. . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Virginia Nunes Gutierrez . . . 34

Mercy Ovuworie. . . . . . . . . . . 56

Laura Dalton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Beth Gibson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Jen Kanagy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Charles Thompkins . . . . . . . . 22

Rick Bannister. . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Mary Wetterauer. . . . . . . . . . . 64

Preparing Future Citizens

A Beacon of Hope

a Helping Hand

Honoring Her Roots

An Advocate for Accessibility

Neighborhood Activist

Inspiring Others

Helping Others break free

Breaking Bread

Shaping the Future

Fair Play

Crucial Connections

A Guiding Hand

True Character

Force of Nature

Plates of Cheer

Reaching out

A Life of Service

Sarai Exil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Ensuring Success

JUDGES: Jacquie Ayres

Scot Kirk

Ray Paprocki

Dwight Smith

Dispatch Magazines

Columbus Dispatch

Dispatch Magazines

Columbus Foundation

Ryan Edwards

Rachel Kilroy

Alan Miller

Josh Sarver

Erica Thompson

United Way of Central Ohio

Columbus Dispatch

Columbus Dispatch

COSI

Columbus Dispatch

CME Federal Credit Union

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Suzanne Goldsmith

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RemembeR that heRoes walk among us

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Hamdi Yusuf Extraordinary hardships haven’t stopped a 20-year-old’s quest to help Somali refugees become U.S. citizens.

By Massillon Myers Dispatch Magazines

H

amdi Yusuf was 15 years old when her life changed forever. She was sitting in her parents’ bedroom when a bullet flew through the window and struck her in the head. She fell onto the mattress, where her younger brother found her minutes later, surrounded by blood.

She spent 16 days at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and had weeks of speech therapy before transitioning back to school with the help of a tutor. Doctors left the bullet in her head, fearing they could cause more harm if they attempted to remove it. (Today, she can still feel the bullet move around in her head.) Then, three years later, she suffered another extraordinary trauma: She was a passenger in a car involved in a serious car crash that put her in a coma for two months.

Yusuf, now 20 years old, has been through a lot and suffered greatly—anguish that led her to attempt suicide four times. But those hardships haven’t stopped her from serving others, which, in turn, has helped her regain her will to live. “People wanted me to take time off and heal myself saying, ‘Oh my God, you’ve been through life or death,’ ” Yusuf said. “But that wasn’t going to get me anywhere in life.”

Three times a week, Yusuf teaches a class for Somali refugees preparing to take a U.S. citizenship test. They write the answers to test questions on the board, and Yusuf explains the answers when they get stuck. She got involved in the class when she was 11 but became more

“She is beyond dedicated

to helping these folks pass their [citizenship] test.”

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Photo by Tim Johnson Dispatch Magazines

involved since the car crash.

“A lot of them pass the test, and when they come back, we have a party,” said Yusuf. “I fell in love with this class—at times it’s what keeps me going because I could have the worst day and then come in and teach and feel better.”

Beth Stock, the program development coordinator for the Child Development Council of Franklin County, has helped run a Head Start program at Capital Park Apartments in Columbus for 23 years and has known Yusuf and her family, Somali immigrants who moved to the U.S. in 2004, for nine.

Stock has watched Yusuf grow, first as a resident of the apartment complex and volunteer at its community center, and now as a paid employee who teaches the weekly U.S. citizenship class. Yusuf has helped dozens of refugees pass the citizenship test and does so by being patient and explaining answers to each question that they go over. She even prints the questions in large print to help older students with poor eyesight.

“She is beyond dedicated to helping these folks pass their test,” said Stock. “I watch her in action, and I’m a better person for it.”

In the fall, Yusuf hopes to start taking classes at Columbus State Community College. She’s also writing an autobiography about her journey, recovery and mental health.

Yusuf’s friends call her “Hamdi Lucky,” a name that has stuck with her since she was shot at her apartment in 2014 and then got in the car accident in 2017. With the support of her friends and family, Yusuf says she is happy and in a good place now. “Helping people and just changing people’s lives is the most beautiful thing you can do,” said Yusuf. “Knowing that God looks at my heart and my intentions and is always there to reward me is what keeps me going.” H

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Mindy Atwood The Patches of Light founder supports families of sick children.

By Michael Lee the columbus dispatch

M

indy Atwood understands the all-consuming fear and concern when a child is sick.

Her son Jason had been ill for about a year, but doctors couldn’t pinpoint a diagnosis. One day, she noticed the 3-year-old wasn’t walking properly. She lifted his shirt up and saw he was bleeding from his right side. He was eventually diagnosed with a Wilms tumor, a childhood kidney cancer.

That was in 1983. Almost a decade later, when her youngest son Michael was 9 years old, he was diagnosed with a heart murmur and had to have open-heart surgery.

Her sons eventually recovered and Atwood, 61, turned her attention to helping others in her situation.

The Hilliard woman started by raising money through candy sales to help families with basic needs. Then in 1999, Atwood founded Patches of Light, a nonprofit that assists with emergency expenses for families with ill children and provides gift bags to cheer them up. “We wanted to be right in there, putting 100 percent to the families,” she said.

Now, Patches of Light receives five to 10 applications a week from families who are looking for assistance.

Atwood visits Nationwide Children’s Hospital two to three times a week to hand out a variety of gift bags and to offer help.

The assistance includes programs such as fishing trips to let families go outdoors with their kids and HUG bags filled with goodies such as blankets, superhero capes and gas station gift cards. “Our whole goal is to work with families that don’t have help,” Atwood said.

Atwood’s 62-year-old husband, Rod, said seeing his wife help families for the last 20 years is inspiring to him, especially since she deals with severe arthritis.

“Instead of complaining and not doing anything and just laying there in bed like some people will do, she gets up and just fights everyday,” he said. “She fights for the children, she fights for the families, she fights for trying to get money to come in ... she does everything.”

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Photo by Eric Albrecht the columbus dispatch

Rod Atwood said that since Patches of Light started, he’s seen a change in his wife. “I have seen her mature a lot from the emotional aspect of it, to more of a business aspect of it to fulfill the needs of her organization,” he said. “As you get older, you get wiser, you open up to new ideas. She’s been more creative.”

One child sticks in Atwood’s mind as she continues her mission. Sam Williams, now 14, was born with gastroschisis—a defect of the abdominal wall where a child is born with their intestines on the outside—and had to undergo liver, small bowel and pancreas transplants due to complications that it caused. He also just found out that he has thyroid cancer. Still, Sam is almost always smiling.

“I’ve only seen this child not smile once, and that was when he was school-clothes shopping,” she said. Sam’s mother sent Atwood a photo of the boy frowning during the shopping trip.

Sam’s mother, Mallory Williams, 34, said she met Atwood when Patches of Light sponsored a fundraiser for Sam. Since then, Atwood provides constant support for the Williams family.

“I don’t think we’d be where we are right now without their help financially, and then also just her emotional support to my family and, I know, to Sam,” Williams said.

Seeing kids that are going through painful illnesses and treatments and still smile—like Sam—is one of the biggest reasons Atwood said she will keep helping them and their families as long as possible.

But what also drives her is knowing that while she sees some families getting support from their own circles, there are families who can’t even afford food or shelter.

“I have to fight for these families, because the other families have people who fight,” she said. “That’s what keeps me going too, is that fight to make sure that all the families are taken care of, all of the families know they’re loved and there’s somebody there for them.” H

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Finalist

Chrisanne Gordon A physician uses her personal struggles to help veterans suffering with traumatic brain injury.

By Rita Price The columbus dispatch

D

r. Chrisanne Gordon’s speech was so moving, so different from any of the previous Memorial Day messages he’d heard over the years, that Corey O’Brien felt compelled to make his way through the crowd to thank her personally.

“You’re usually such a wallflower,” O’Brien’s wife said, more than just a little surprised.

O’Brien could hardly believe it himself. But Gordon clearly hadn’t come to the Dublin event to deliver typical thank-a-veteran commentary. She was there to say that the nation needs to do more for its military men and women, too many of whom have had their lives upended by the common, complex and often undiagnosed effects of traumatic brain injury.

The U.S. Army and Ohio National Guard veteran introduced himself to Gordon, a physician who founded the Dublin-based Resurrecting Lives Foundation in 2012 to assist and advocate for servicemen and women with traumatic brain injuries.

He didn’t immediately explain the depth of his struggle since returning from Iraq, which left him feeling like a car on the freeway “with four flat tires,” bumping along awkwardly as other vehicles zoomed past. O’Brien had five kids, a career as a high-school science teacher and hardly any patience. His anger sometimes flared to the edge of violence.

“I was in a dark place,” he said.

Gordon suggested they make a plan to meet so that she could learn more about what he had experienced

Photos by Rob Hardin Dispatch Magazines

while deployed. “We start talking and I tell her about the blasts,” said O’Brien, 41, who lives in Dublin. “I tell her about the mortars.”

Victims of traumatic brain injury often blame themselves for their changed behavior, not realizing that blows or force to the head have caused lasting harm, Gordon said. Step one is helping them understand they have injuries, not character flaws. “They’re out of their brains; they’re not out of their minds,” she explained. “Certain pathways are literally ripped—just like the earthquake in California. There’s a big upheaval, and things are no longer connected.”

Gordon told O’Brien that she thought he could benefit from transcendental meditation as part of his cognitive retraining and healing. She also suspected he’d soon be able to help her help more veterans. That was two years ago, and Gordon was right: O’Brien now heads the foundation’s transcendental meditation initiative.

“It’s kind of empowering to feel close to who you used to be. I have goosebumps just thinking about the difference,” he said. “I caught myself humming the other day. You don’t hum when you’re angry.”

Those who know Gordon well aren’t surprised that the Resurrecting Lives Foundation, a nonprofit that has served vets in 28 states and linked dozens to essential resources, emerged as her response to personal pain and tragedy.

But the dots didn’t connect immediately.

“She personally treats a ton of these veterans, at no cost, who come to her one way or another. Some have literally said, ‘I’m going to kill myself. Tell me why I shouldn’t.’ ”

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The Marysville-based physician, 66, had suffered her own traumatic brain injury several years ago, striking her head against brick while pushing a box of china into the crawl space in her home. “I wasn’t in a war zone and I didn’t do anything heroic,” she said, smiling. “I was putting away Christmas decorations.”

She was knocked unconscious and, when she woke up, feared paralysis. A friend found her and got her to the emergency room. Gordon was anxious, dizzy and unable to tolerate light. She couldn’t speak or figure out how to use a phone.

Within six weeks, the fear and confusion were so bad she considered suicide to escape. “I was lucky, because I didn’t have the means or know how to do it,” Gordon said.

And yet, initial scans of her brain hadn’t revealed abnormalities. That’s not unusual for the so-called “invisible injuries,” whose discovery is often delayed or missed when outward signs don’t appear severe, she said.

“My scans were normal back then, but you should see them now,” Gordon said. “The first left turn I was able to negotiate was a year later. I still can’t read a map.”

Though she continues to manage some effects, Gordon had largely recovered by the time a friend’s relative, Army Sgt. Zachary McBride, was killed in Iraq in 2008. She chose to honor his memory by volunteering at Veterans Administration medical clinics in Columbus and found herself conducting screenings for brain injury.

“It was more than just a little ironic that I’d lost my voice and got it back,” Gordon said. “But there were all these young men and women who have no voice.”

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She soon developed a vision for a foundation that would advocate exclusively on awareness, treatment and employment for veterans with traumatic brain injury.

Elle Crader, a former Central Ohio resident who assists Gordon with some of the Resurrecting Lives Foundation’s work, said she’s never encountered someone so dedicated to a cause. “This is her life,” said Crader, who now lives in Chicago. “She personally treats a ton of these veterans, at no cost, who come to her one way or another. Some have literally said, ‘I’m going to kill myself. Tell me why I shouldn’t.’ ” Gordon can give them plenty of reasons, along with expert care and hope. The foundation has so far intervened in more than 50 suicide threats.

An estimated 20 to 25 percent of the nearly 3.2 million returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have a traumatic brain injury, according to the foundation, while an estimated 30 percent have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Such brain injuries regularly lead to misery for hundreds of thousands of people. In addition to physical effects, victims often suffer high rates of substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness and incarceration. “The reason there has been a surge in suicide is because they don’t want to be a burden,” Gordon said.

But there are many treatment models that can help the brain re-establish critical attachments and connections.

Yoga, pilates and meditation provide a foundation for some; others respond to different types of brain exercises and games, she said.

Gordon has aided several veterans in Alaska whose conditions greatly improved after the foundation sent them

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Far left and above: Dr. Chrisanne Gordon talks with veteran Corey O’Brien at Memorial Hospital of Union County.

Chrisanne Gordon Neighborhood: Dublin

lighting to help alleviate symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. They were going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, worsening their already-fragile moods. The lamps “have been a great solution,” Gordon said, laughing.

“Thank goodness for Amazon.”

Gary Johnson, a former Marysville fire chief who has worked alongside Gordon in emergency rooms and on the foundation, describes his friend as tireless. “The motive is pure, and the authenticity is there,” he said. “She fights like hell to help these people.”

Gordon hopes to expand the reach of the foundation so it can do more for other populations that tend to suffer high rates of brain injury, including athletes and victims of domestic violence. “We are in a global traumatic brain injury pandemic,” she said, adding that each case is different because every brain is different.

That’s why listening is so important.

O’Brien believes he’s thriving today because Gordon wanted to hear his story, to help him understand that his brain hadn’t healed along with his cuts and bruises. “I’m a better father, a better husband, a better teacher,” he said.

“Resurrecting Lives has, honest to God, resurrected me.” H

She is inspired by: The veterans who find hope and healing through her nonprofit Resurrecting Lives Foundation, which offers treatment and advocacy to servicemen and women who experience traumatic brain injury. Gordon often thinks about an emotional moment with one of the first veterans she helped. “He grabbed my hand and said, ‘So what you’re telling me doc is, I’m not crazy?’ ” An obstacle that she has overcome: The physician suffered her own traumatic brain injury several years ago in a home accident. She, too, faced a difficult recovery that is chronicled in her book, “Turn the Lights On!” What keeps her engaged: The overwhelming need for improved screening, treatment and services for people suffering from what is often an invisible injury. “Traumatic brain injury is probably the most under-diagnosed and untreated injury that we have throughout the world,” she said.

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Aaron Westbrook A college student provides prosthetics to those in need.

By Marla K. Kuhlman thisweek community news

A

aron Westbrook postponed college for a year to launch Form5 Prosthetics Inc., a nonprofit that provides people with limb loss an opportunity to make their own eco-friendly prosthetics.

Westbook’s own experiences inspired the organization.

Born without a right hand, the 20-year-old Reynoldsburg resident got his first artificial limb as a freshman in high school. “I went the traditional route and went to a clinic,” said Westbrook, who started Form5 right after graduating from New Albany High School in 2017. “I realized how outdated and disconnected the industry was to people with limb loss. I knew there needed to be a solution that was either, I need to find that or create that.”

Now attending Ohio State University as a business marketing major, Westbrook hopes to be working fulltime at Form5 by the time he graduates. “He’s taken a problem he himself experiences on a daily basis, operationalized a solution to that problem and extended the solution to the general public as a nonprofit entity,” said Derek DeHart, who nominated Westbrook for this award. DeHart, an Everyday Heroes semifinalist last year, met Westbrook about a year ago after they were introduced by Emily Savors at the Columbus Foundation.

As a 15-year-old sophomore in high school, Westbrook created a 3D-printed prosthetic device for his arm as part of an independent project in the MIT Fabrication Lab on the New Albany-Plain Local Schools campus.

“I pretty much, the moment after making my arm, knew I wanted to provide that to other people,” he said.

“Therefore, we started the organization that we could provide that same opportunity to those like myself.”

Westbrook said community member Rourke Adams had experience with another nonprofit, Nellie’s Champions for Kids, and helped him launch Form5 in the summer of 2017. Adams is the technology director and board president of Form5. Other members of the board of directors include Cara Blakeslee, secretary, and Con-

Photo by Lorrie Cecil thisweek community news

nor Emrich, treasurer.

Seven people have received prosthetics through Form5, a name that evolved from Alive With Five, a blog Westbrook founded in 2013 to document his experiences, struggles and accomplishments as someone who was born with one hand.

He said the number 5 stemmed from the blog name, a reference to five fingers.

Westbrook said Form5 is a recipient-based organization that uses eco-friendly materials.

“We recycle plastic from Columbus through plastic drives,” he explained. “We make all devices out of recycled plastic.”

He said Form5 focuses on task-specific devices like those for playing a musical instrument or riding a bicycle.

Starting this year, Westbrook said, Form5 will be shifting the way it works with recipients through workshops. The organization is planning its inaugural event, CO-FAB, for Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 8-11 at the Form5 office, 735 Cross Pointe Road, Suite C, in Columbus. During that workshop, five individuals with limb loss will be paired with college interns in fields such as biomedicine, design and engineering. “[Participants] will be teamed with our leading sponsors and engineer personnel to create their own prosthetic,” Westbrook said. “Really, our vision for the organization going forward is not just providing prosthetics for those with limb loss, but providing those with limb loss the opportunity to create their own prosthetic.

I think that’s really the experience that empowered me to do all of this. I think that’s what we want to provide to those with limb loss through the organization.”

Westbrook said it’s an indescribable experience to give something back to someone or maybe give them something they never even had.

“I think, for me, what makes me a hero in doing all of this is the fact that I get to be the person I needed when I was growing up,” he said. H

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Inna Simakovsky An immigration attorney goes above and beyond to help new residents.

By Michelle Michael The columbus dispatch

S

eated in the back of the auditorium at the Ohio History Connection, Inna Simakovsky beamed as she surveyed the crowded room. Hundreds gathered to celebrate their allegiance to the United States in a naturalization oath ceremony for new citizens. Simakovsky, an immigration attorney, was not required to be present to see some of her clients become naturalized citizens. But she chose to be there.

“I come here to remind myself why I do what I do,” Simakovsky said. “It recharges my soul.”

Simakovsky said practicing immigration law today is different than what it was before. With the current administration, her work days can be chaotic.

“I never thought we’d be in a place where there’s so much hatred toward people like me,” Simakovsky said, choking up. “Why do we have such hatred toward people that are us?”

She knows the plight of refugees because she was one. Simakovsky, 48, came to the United States in 1976 as a child refugee from the former Soviet Union.

As Jews, Simakovsky and her family were persecuted and discriminated against under communist rule. Wanting to escape the oppression, they left the Soviet Union, knowing there was no return.

The Simakovskys spent about five months in Italy while their documents were being processed. They were finally adopted by a Jewish family and arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, with a suitcase and about $100.

After her mother traced back some old family ties in Columbus, they moved to the city in 1977, where Simakovsky began first grade.

She completed her primary and higher education in Ohio and graduated with a juris doctor degree from Ohio State in 1998. She then worked on immigration cases for several nonprofits on the West Coast before returning to Columbus in 2004.

“I’m a nonprofit girl,” Simakovsky said. “But I also had the desire to advocate.”

Feeling limited by the boundaries in the nonprofit sector, Simakovsky began practicing private law with a

Photo by Eric Albrecht the columbus dispatch

law firm in 2007. She established her own firm, Simakovsky Law, in 2012.

She and a fellow attorney won the first legal status for an immigrant seeking sanctuary in Ohio. For Simakovsky, helping immigrants is more than just a day job.

“She is so driven to help,” said Lauren Powers, operations manager at Simakovsky Law. “For many, it may just be a job. But for Inna, it’s an all-encompassing thing; for her, this is life-giving.”

Despite her years of practice as an immigration attorney, Simakovsky still enjoys face-to-face interactions from the start, Powers said. She continues to give out her cellphone number to her clients even today.

“She practices what she preaches,” Powers said.

“Watching her in action is really inspiring.”

In addition to her law practice, Simakovsky is also involved in several other efforts to help immigrants.

Simakovsky heard about the overground railroad project when it was in its initial stage. The project helps immigrants traveling from the border by donating food, water and other necessities like toiletries and diapers and meeting them at bus stations in several cities around the country.

She soon got on board with the project and became one of its founding members for Columbus, making her office a donation drop-off point. She and her staff visit the Greyhound station regularly to meet those stopping in Columbus and provide the collected items. Simakovsky is also the legal adviser for Vineyard Church Immigration Counseling Services and holds regular legal clinics.

She said that she knows and understands what it is like to survive. Her personal experiences and struggles are instrumental for her to help immigrants—who are now in similar positions as she was decades ago—navigate the legal landscape. “My work is challenging, but rewarding,” she said.

Simakovsky, her husband and three children live in Bexley with her parents just a block away.

“A true immigrant family,” she called it. H

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Laura Dalton The Arc Industries outreach coordinator champions people with disabilities.

By Brittany Moseley dispatch magazines

L

aura Dalton began working full-time with people with developmental disabilities in 2000—at least officially. Unofficially, her career began as a 16-year-old Girl Scout. During camp counselor training, Dalton was part of the Special Friends Unit, which included Girl Scouts with and without disabilities.

She fell in love with the work and would go on to study therapeutic recreation in college.

“Since that summer, I knew that this was what I wanted to do,” Dalton said. “It was the personal connection. It was seeing people do something for the first time and [it was] like, ‘Wow, I can do this,’ kind of amazement.

They were so happy.”

Today, Dalton is a training supervisor at Arc Industries, a nonprofit that serves people with disabilities through vocational training, work placement, habilitation and community outreach, the latter of which Dalton oversees at the Arc West office. She began working at Arc in July 2018. Before that, she spent 17.5 years at the Association for the Developmentally Disabled, or ADD. Through ADD, she contracted with Arc. “When I was with ADD, I worked in all of the Arc Industries buildings. When you walk in, you feel like a movie star. Some people will come running up to you and give you a hug.

It’s just a great feeling. You don’t necessarily get hugs at all jobs, but you definitely do here,” Dalton said.

As the supervisor of the community section, Dalton coordinates volunteer and recreation opportunities.

The goal is for the people Arc serves to become active members of their communities, whether that means attending a yoga class or volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House.

Dalton also helps supervise the PIECE Project, a collaboration between Arc, Ohio State University’s Nisonger Center and the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities. PIECE—which stands for Pre-Vocational Integrated and Educational Campus Experience—helps individuals with disabilities discover what kind of work they’d like to do through job shadowing, informational

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Photo by Tim Johnson dispatch magazines

interviews, internships and career assessments.

“We want the community to see people with disabilities as the ones giving services rather than receiving services,” Dalton said.

That mission is an ongoing one for Dalton, and while the public mindset about people with disabilities has evolved over the years, she said there are still barriers left to break down.

“A lot of times if you call somebody and say, ‘We want to have a group of people with disabilities come and volunteer at your location,’ the answer is typically, ‘My manager will get back to you.’ But if you go in and you’re in the community and people see you, that’s the way that we’ve started to change the minds of people, just by being present and being active.”

Dalton’s colleague John Wick, a supervisor at Arc West, said her dedication to the people she serves and her patience and optimism are what make her great at her job.

“She’s very conscientious of the end customer and what their experience is going to be,” Wick said. “She likes to do things right so it’s not just, ‘Well let’s just get something done.’ That separates someone from a reasonable employee to an exceptional employee.”

Fellow Arc West supervisor Robin Rexroad agrees.

“She has zero boundaries. She is open to anything that anyone is interested in. She doesn’t see any limits for anyone,” Rexroad said. “She will help them achieve any goals, aspirations they have.”

As a 16-year-old, Dalton fell in love with this work because of the personal connections it created. It’s the same reason she continues the work today.

“I’m here to serve them,” Dalton said of the people who come to Arc Industries. “I’m here because I love them, and even if it’s a small win and I see somebody smile for the first time or volunteer some place that they’ve never been before, those little things that happen, that’s what keeps me coming back: seeing somebody do something that they didn’t think they could do.” H

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Charles Thompkins For 40 years, a volunteer has been fostering community pride.

By Gary Seman Jr. ThisWeek Community News

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harles Thompkins was never afraid of a little hard work, whether he was getting paid for it or volunteering. For more than 40 years, he’s been trying to make the Milo-Grogan neighborhood in North Columbus a better place to live. “It’s just been a blessing, trying to help people,” said Thompkins, 55.

It all started when he was 13 years old. Thompkins was hired by the neighborhood Boys & Girls Club of Columbus on Cleveland Avenue as part of a work program for youth.

Thompkins said he started a basketball league, raised funds for new transportation vans and founded a Secret Santa gift giveaway, with the help of Edmond Smith and Hoss Jones. Columbus bodybuilder Curt Haywood, who worked at the nearby Timken Roller Bearing Co., where Thompkins would eventually get a job, also worked out at the Boys and Girls Club with Thompkins.

Some of Haywood’s co-workers bet they could beat Haywood and Thompkins in a 5-mile foot race.

Little did they know, Thompkins, a 1983 Centennial High School graduate, ran track and played baseball and basketball. Ever the volunteer, Thompkins said he would accept the challenge, but only if they renovated the club’s workout facility.

Thompkins won the race.

“I thought it was funny,” he said, “because if they don’t know you they think they can beat you.” The group at Timken also bought a van for the club, Thompkins said.

Fast forward several years later and Thompkins learned the club had canceled the Secret Santa program.

Thompkins was having none of it. He revived it as “Adopt a Family at Christmas.”

“When the Boys & Girls Club stopped [the program], I saw the impact that had on families, so I kept it up,” he said. The holiday program now serves more than 150 families.

“That was due to the businesses in the community,” he said. “They donated $8,000 to the families we adopted at Christmas.”

Photo by Shane Flanigan ThisWeek Community News

Mandy Harless of ERA Real Solutions Realty met Thompkins when Columbus Realtors, the board of real estate agents and professionals in Central Ohio, asked her to serve as chairwoman of a Realtor Care Day committee. Her task was to organize a public-service project in a local community.

When Harless visited the Milo-Grogan Area Commission, of which Thompkins is chairman and has been a member for 21 years, she quickly learned he was the person to see.

Thompkins took her on a trip through the neighborhood. She met homeowners and residents and learned about the needs of the community.

Harless’ Realtor Care Day committee spent a day each in 2018 and ‘19 doing exterior painting, cleanups and landscaping at several houses in the area. She said the “absolute, selfless dedication” of Thompkins was evident by the warm reception he received everywhere he went.

“He can’t walk down the street without a handful of people there to greet him and hug him,” Harless said.

“He’s just very quiet, very behind the scenes—but very purposeful in his intent to bring good things to Milo-Grogan.”

Among his long list of volunteer duties, Thompkins heads a fundraising committee for the Milo-Grogan Community Center, 862 E. Second Ave. Michael Stevens, recreation leader at the center, said Thompkins is “always smiling, always saying something nice to somebody and full of energy.”

“He’s an extraordinary person,” Stevens said. “He goes above and beyond with everything he does for the community and the center.”

Now a manager for a contractor for the Ohio Lottery, Thompkins still is proud to call Milo-Grogan home. It is where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and son, Charles Jr., a student at Columbus North International School.

“It’s an attractive, loving community,” he said of his neighborhood.

The community has about 7,000 residents. “And I know, probably, 95 percent of them,” Thompkins said. H

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Finalist

Zerqa Abid A Hilliard resident engages young people in a struggling Hilltop housing complex.

By Suzanne Goldsmith DIspatch Magazines

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n 2017, seven people were killed in Wedgewood Village, a 684-unit low-income housing complex on the West Side, leading The Columbus Dispatch to call it “Columbus’ deadliest location.” In the wake of that violent season, commander Scott Hyland, who oversaw the Columbus Division of Police’s West Side patrol for five years before starting a new assignment this summer, began walking the streets of the low-rise complex himself. He hoped to develop relationships in a troubled and fearful community that is home to many Somali refugees and immigrants. But Hyland couldn’t seem to make headway until he met Zerqa Abid, the founder of an initiative to engage the complex’s young people in soccer, reading and other programs.

Abid invited the police commander to attend Friday night social gatherings she’d organized for young Wedgewood women. She brought him to parenting classes she’d set up at nearby Wedgewood Middle School.

And at Abid’s invitation, Hyland and other police officers pitched in at a community clean-up day, where they not only picked up litter but also distributed flyers on how to contact police anonymously about suspicious activities.

Crime dropped significantly in Wedgewood Village in 2018, Hyland said. And while multiple factors likely contributed to the change, he gives a lot of the credit to Abid, who helped improve police-community relations and initiated programs that engage hundreds of young

Photos by Rob Hardin Dispatch MAgazines

people. “The calmness in the neighborhood—it grew,” he said. “And the confidence and the feeling of it being a safer neighborhood.”

Abid is not Somali, and she lives in Hilliard, not Wedgewood Village. She’s a seasoned activist and volunteer community organizer who calls herself a “fighter mom,” an “activist mother” and, occasionally, a “Pakistani Muslim American Hilliard mom.”

The 50-year-old mother of three and grandmother of two married young in her native Pakistan, where she waited for a green card for six years after her husband came to the U.S. Finally, she and their two girls were able to join him in North Carolina, where she earned a degree in mass communications. Still wearing the face-covering veil that she had adopted by choice—she would later give it up, opting instead for a hijab and modest attire—she worked at television stations in Raleigh and then in Karachi, Pakistan, before the family landed in Columbus in 2007. Around that time, she helped found a national network against domestic violence in Muslim families.

Abid was impelled to take action locally by 2013 newspaper coverage of an alleged Somali human trafficking ring said to be forcing Muslim girls into prostitution in several U.S. cities, including Columbus. “I’m a mother of three daughters,” she said. “I could not sleep on this idea that somebody’s daughter would be

“She holds them accountable and asks a lot of them—but always watching them step up and meet her goals, which benefits not only those young people, but the community they’re serving.”

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sold several times a day because maybe my sister was not able to help her.”

“I have gotten help from my friends,” she added. “We get help from friends and cousins and extended family. I wanted to be that help for my brothers and sisters in my refugee community.”

Believing that poverty and lack of opportunity set the stage for social ills like gangs, prostitution, drugs and even radicalization, Abid planned an ambitious effort to engage young people on the Hilltop. She called her nonprofit MY Project USA, with MY representing Muslim Youth.

Abid drew criticism from a few Somali Muslim religious leaders by speaking out about domestic violence and sex trafficking, although she is careful to point out that she believes these are cultural and family issues, not religious ones, and that she has received tremendous community support in addition to criticism. Her goal is to combat Islamophobia, not increase it.

Abid’s first project was the 2015 creation of a thrift shop, not far from Wedgewood Village, called My Deah’s Store.

That’s where Dr. Hoda Amer, the Dublin cytologist who nominated Abid as an Everyday Hero, first met her after answering a Facebook call for volunteers. It was just before the religious festival of Eid al-Fitr, said Amer, and the shop was a huge jumble of clothing for the holiday. “But by the time Eid came, those fancy dresses were all hung up, and you know, the community came in and bought it—for very cheap prices.”

Amer was impressed at the outcome, and by Abid’s commitment, pointing out that Abid not only works without pay but has invested her own money in MY Project USA. A few

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years later, Amer is a regular donor to the organization, and her two children are among the dozens of college students who volunteer weekly at Abid’s second initiative, a free food pantry that serves an average of 120 families a week.

Abid has engaged not only the police but Columbus City Council, which since 2017 has awarded three grants totaling $142,000 for soccer and other youth programming at Wedgewood organized by MY Project USA. County Auditor Michael Stinziano, who was on council in 2017, was impressed by her sense of urgency—and, when he saw her in action, by her way with the kids. “She holds them accountable and asks a lot of them—but always watching them step up and meet her goals, which benefits not only those young people, but the community they’re serving,” he said.

Russ Harris, a retired lobbyist who once served as Grove City’s soccer commissioner, is MY Project USA’s treasurer and, this past summer, worked to get utility poles removed and lines painted on a greenspace at Wedgewood so that the 110 kids signed up for the coming soccer season would have a convenient place to play. “I want this community to own their own soccer field,” he said. “Zerqa’s passion is inspiring.”

On a late Thursday afternoon in July, Abid met with eight teens in the back of My Deah’s Store. They were preparing to knock on Wedgewood doors to recruit more players and families for the soccer program.

She frowned as she paged through one of the teen’s canvassing notebooks. “This binder is to make you more organized and help you understand the value of data.” The outcome of every visit should be noted in the book, she said.

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Zerqa Abid Neighborhoods: Hilliard and Hilltop What inspires her? Quran, prophets and all social justice warriors: Those who selflessly, tirelessly do everything to bring justice to the people around them and to uplift their communities.

What keeps her engaged?

Wedgewood Youth.

“Regardless of the attacks on me, I have not given up because of them. Their need. Their hard work. Their resilience. Their achievements and desire to do better give hope for them and for the rest of the kids who could use my help.”

Left: Zerqa Abid, second from right, and Russ Harris, far left, with members of MY Project USA Right top: Wedgewood Village community members play soccer outside the community center.

Right bottom: Abid talks with a Wedgewood Village resident about efforts to sign up youths for a soccer team during an open meeting for the community.

Abid closed the meeting with a safety message. “Don’t go alone.” She rapped on the table. “Guys! Nobody is going alone.”

Fifteen-year-old Abdi Bakari got involved in MY Project USA after his older brother was murdered in 2018. “I wanted something to do and not think about his death,” Bakari said, leaving the meeting. “I feel like it’s important because if we have more kids involved in soccer, then they won’t be involved in gang violence.”

Bakari was talking about the younger kids he is learning to coach—but he was also talking about himself, as his friend Abdulkadir Omar, also 15, pointed out. “It’s good what she does,” Omar said, referring to Abid. “She takes time out of her day to help this neighborhood. These kids.” He paused.

“Us. What we’re doing right now is actually keeping us off the streets, too.”

Abid watched the teens fan out into the complex. “It’s Organizing 101, what they are doing right here,” she said.

“Sometimes I want to go five years forward and see what they are doing then.” H

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Carrie Leigh A Bruner Corp. employee spreads a spirit of generosity among her co-workers.

By Nicholas Youngblood dispatch magazines

I

f you want to find a hero, ask a hero. Renna Schafler, an Everyday Hero from two years ago, nominated Carrie Leigh for the award this year.

Leigh and Schafler have worked together at Bruner Corp. for years, and while the employees at the Hilliard mechanical contracting firm have always fostered a culture of giving, Schafler said Leigh helped kick it into overdrive. “She is the driving force that keeps everybody motivated and in line and keeps them engaged,” Schafler said.

Leigh is relentless in her generosity. She constantly orchestrates new ways to help her coworkers give back to the Hilliard community, most often through Beacon Elementary School, located just down the road from Bruner. Leigh organizes Operation Backpack in the summer, collecting backpacks, school supplies and classroom necessities for the students and teachers at Beacon. She also runs a year-round program to supply food over the weekends for children who might go hungry when school is out. In December, Leigh manages a program to adopt a family (or several) for the holidays, giving toys, clothes, gift cards, toiletries and more. Every Wednesday, Leigh and about a dozen other employees read one-on-one with first-grade students who need the support. Beyond Beacon, Leigh organizes food drives and visits from the Humane Society at her office. Even at work, it seems like giving is a full-time job for her.

Schafler said Leigh is in charge of a service leadership committee in the office. Ask Leigh, and she will tell you she “heads up the office huddles.” Leigh thinks the secret to getting people motivated about giving is to find what moves them. This inclusive spirit led to her participation in so many programs. “It’s infectious,” she said. “We get each other involved in a lot of things.”

“She is the driving force that keeps everybody motivated and in line and keeps them engaged.”

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Still, Leigh has her favorites. She finds working directly with the kids to be the most inspiring. She loves reading with the students at Beacon Elementary because it allows her to see the impacts of her work firsthand.

“Everybody wants to do good, on a general basis. You want to be good at what you do; you want to do good for people around you,” Leigh said. “And when you start giving to somebody else, it’s almost selfish. You feel so good yourself. It fills you up.”

Not only do the students see an academic boost, but their behavior also improves. They become more social, and Leigh said they realize that it is OK to be a learner, even if they need help. “Once they grow socially like that, and they become more confident, then they will be able to take care of themselves in such a way that they’re not afraid to ask for help or to help someone else,” she said.

Leigh’s generosity isn’t reserved for the larger Hilliard community, however. She finds it just as important to give back to those right in front of her. When one of her coworkers developed cancer, Leigh gathered donations from the office—homemade decorations, original paintings—and organized a silent auction to benefit him and his family.

In almost all of Leigh’s work, she aims to inspire others to give back with whatever they have. It’s a habit she picked up after experiencing need herself. Before she moved to Ohio with her two children, she was living in food insecurity in Arizona, and she credits the community that uplifted her for her current success. She is especially concerned with preserving the dignity of the people she helps, making sure they never feel belittled.

Leigh’s goal in all of her work is simple: She wants to spread love. While she knows not everyone has excess funds to donate to those in need, Leigh thinks time is much more valuable. Giving your time really means something, and that does more to spread love than money alone in her eyes. “If you’ve got time,” she said, “there’s somebody that needs you.” H

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Khaleeqa Sadiika A former addict shows there’s worth in all people.

By Andrew King ThisWeek Community News

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haleeqa Sadiika was fed up. She had spent the past seven years on the street as a homeless, drug-addicted prostitute, losing everything that was important in her life: her car, her home, her career. After passing the exam to become a Columbus police officer and waiting for a job to open up in the division, Sadiika’s then-boyfriend introduced her to crack cocaine. “Hitting it one time cost me seven years,” she said.

But Sadiika knew she had more to offer the world, and she turned to God for guidance in 2012. “I was tired of jumping in cars,” Sadiika recalled. “I was tired of living in abandoned houses and garages. I was tired of having to do sexual favors for ordinary things like shelter and food.”

“I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired, so one day I threw my apparatus—which for me was a crack pipe—in the bushes and looked to the heavens and asked God to give me a purpose.”

That purpose was Malachi.

Sadiika discovered she was pregnant on Aug. 16, 2012. Today, the Linden resident is raising her 6-yearold son and has been clean and sober since discovering she was carrying Malachi. She’s even started her own nonprofit, Life Beyond Streets, which helps lost souls, just like she was helped in her time of need.

“Khaleeqa is passionate about giving back to people who are in the same situation as she was,” said Donna Poppendieck, a substance-abuse counselor who is on the board of directors for Life Beyond the Streets. “She

“She is very adaptive and has taken on such a daunting task.

She is really determined to make it a success.”

Photo by Lorrie Cecil ThisWeek Community News

is very adaptive and has taken on such a daunting task.

She is really determined to make it a success.”

The seeds of Life Beyond the Streets were sowed in 2014, but the organization did not receive nonprofit status until 2015.

Poppendieck said Sadiika has opened one sober house and is looking to open more. “She is also really good at getting in-kind donations and getting people to donate time and other things,” Poppendieck said. “She is doing what she can to set her ladies up so they can find success.”

Sadiika also leads street ministries on Saturday afternoons, going to parts of Columbus frequented by prostitutes and addicts. At those informal get-togethers, she distributes much-needed supplies.

“We pass out hygiene love bags, which include underwear, socks, [feminine hygiene] pads, tampons, washcloths, soap, condoms, purses, wigs or whatever we can to make the ladies feel good about themselves and help their self-esteem,” said Sadiika, who is a licensed, state-tested nursing assistant and a certified peerrecovery specialist with the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

“We want them to know they have worth, and we can plant the seeds of hope for recovery,” she said.

Sadiika said she has helped more than 50 clients in need. Unfortunately, not all are receptive to the lifeline.

“I wish people would look at them as victims and not as criminals,” she said. “It’s the guilt and shame and lack of hope and trauma that they have been through that causes them to do what they do.”

“Some people don’t want the help because they aren’t ready,” she continues. “The key to recovery is wanting it, but you have to want it. If you don’t want it, don’t waste my time. I have people out there who want it, who are begging for it. They call me every day, and I’m here for them.” H

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Billy and Lorena Smith A Lancaster couple’s free grilled cheese and tomato soup comforts those in need.

By Sarah Sole ThisWeek Community News

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etween the ages of about 18 to 20, Billy Smith was a Deadhead. While following the Grateful Dead from show to show, he’d sell grilled cheese sandwiches at the concerts.

Although he couldn’t oblige those who wanted his food for free, he promised himself that one day he would give away his sandwiches. “It’s such a simple item that pretty much everybody loves,” Smith said.

Now, Smith and his wife Lorena—Lancaster residents who have been married 20 years—have made Billy’s dream a reality. In an initiative billed Operation FreeChee, the couple takes a food trailer designed specifically to produce high volumes of grilled cheese and tomato soup and travels across the country to help those facing disasters or other types of hardship.

The trailer, which cost about $150,000, can feed about 400 people per hour, Smith said. But being able to show a little bit of love is priceless. “We can change their day with a smile and a hug,” he said.

Smith met his wife in 1998, he said. The couple had talked quite a bit about his dream of offering free grilled cheese to those in need, but for a long time, they didn’t have enough money to execute his plan.

Then the Smiths opened Cherry Street Pub in Lancaster in 2015. Once they were able to pay off their initial debt associated with the venture, they began saving for the food trailer.

Now proceeds from the pub go toward FreeChee.

They also own a catering operation, the Smoked Food Factory on South Broad Street in Lancaster, and are part-

Being able to show a little bit of love is priceless. “We can change their day with a smile and a hug.”

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ners with Brad Hutchinson in the Mill Event Center on South Columbus Street in Lancaster.

Last fall, the Smiths took their trailer on the road.

They drove to Florida to help people who were dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Michael. They set up in Tallahassee, serving grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup to about 500 people per day, Lorena Smith said.

By the end of that week, they had provided more than 2,000 meals before running out of supplies. People were not shy about showing their gratitude.

Smith said she remembered grown men would begin to cry after being served food. “We’ll go anywhere we make people smile; that’s really what it’s about,” Billy Smith said.

In June, the Smiths traveled to Dayton when tornadoes hit the area. Dayton was celebrating its Pride weekend, Billy Smith said, and people were surprised to learn the food was free. “We just wanted to give it away,” he said.

When not providing comfort food to those experiencing disasters or hardships, the Smiths have taken the FreeChee trailer to schools, homeless shelters, mental illness shelters and United Way events.

On Valentine’s Day, Lorena Smith said, they visited Walnut Ridge High School on East Livingston Avenue in Columbus to give soup and grilled cheese to students taking the SAT. The FreeChee trailer ended up visiting nearby middle and elementary schools as well. Billy Smith said he hopes FreeChee picks up more momentum, perhaps even funding from larger food companies to help pay for additional trailers.

Hannah Saunders, who works for Lancaster-based Krile Communications, assists the Smiths with marketing efforts for FreeChee. The Smiths are “genuinely just great people,” Saunders said, adding that the couple lifts up people during tough times. They care about their own community and others’ communities as well, she said.

“They go where they’re needed,” she said. H

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Virginia Nunes Gutierrez A nonprofit leader proves that kindness can bring change.

By Alan Froman ThisWeek Community News

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hen Virginia Nunes Gutierrez and her sister, Victoria Calderon, opened Bottoms Up Coffee Co-Op in 2016 in Franklinton, their plan was to serve more than just coffee. “We wanted to serve the community and help drive economic development in Franklinton and improve the quality of life in the neighborhood,” Gutierrez said.

With that in mind, the sisters decided Bottoms Up would support organizations that worked to improve infant mortality rates. “We put out one cup where people could donate their change and dollars to buy diapers for mothers in Franklinton,” Gutierrez said. “And people really responded.”

In the past 2.5 years, Bottoms Up has donated more than 15,000 diapers to needy families in Franklinton and the surrounding community, she said. “You may not be able to change the world by yourself, but you have the power to impact the life of one person just by simple acts of kindness and empathy,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez, 32, said she learned from personal experience how small acts of kindness can make a difference.

A native of Venezuela, Gutierrez’s family immigrated to Pennsylvania when she was 2 but returned to Venezuela when she was 12.

“We had to leave before we were deported,” she said of the return trip. “I didn’t know I had lived here all those years undocumented.”

In Venezuela, her parents divorced, and her family faced difficulties in a country coping with political and economic turmoil. “There weren’t homeless shelters or food pantries in Venezuela,” she said. “We got by because of the sacrifices my mother made and because of the assistance we received from family members and people we hardly knew.”

Gutierrez and her family earned legal status to return to the United States, and she came to Columbus in 2011, becoming a program officer and community health worker for the Ohio Hispanic Coalition and

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community health coordinator for the Mount Carmel Health System. Gutierrez later became an instructor in the Community Health Worker Training Program at the Ohio State University College of Nursing.

In 2017, she co-founded Avanza Together and serves as executive director for the nonprofit, which assists immigrant families in Central Ohio who are at risk for deportation. “Our mission is to link them to the resources and information they need and to help ensure that families can stay together,” Gutierrez said.

That mission involves raising funds to pay attorney fees, providing transportation to immigration hearings in Cleveland and helping families digitize their documentation. The community projects she has done through Bottoms Up and Avanza Together have been aided by “so many angels,” she said.

When Gutierrez and her sister sold Bottoms Up in 2018 to Joshua and Meghan Boone, the couple not only agreed to continue the diaper drive, but expanded the effort.

In 2019, the coffee shop partnered with the Little Bottom Free Store, a ministry of Central City United Methodist Church, as the store’s diaper supplier. The free store, open Thursdays and Saturdays at West Park United Methodist Church, offers diapers, wipes and baby clothes. Bottoms Up also has selected the Columbus Diaper Bank as a recipient of its diapers.

The partnerships “help us reach even more people with our diaper project,” Joshua Boone said. He and his wife didn’t give a second thought about continuing the diaper drive, he said.

“The thing you notice about Virginia is that when she sees a problem, she takes the initiative to fight it deeply and passionately,” Boone said. “She’s not one to stand idly by. She is active.”

It’s not an accident that so many people have joined the projects Gutierrez has helped start, he said. “She’s such a good person and a real leader,” Boone said. “You can’t help but be inspired by her.” H

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Finalist

Austin Hill A South Side resident shows compassion and love as he helps people addicted to drugs.

By Ken Gordon The columbus dispatch

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or Austin Hill, the hardest part about working with people addicted to drugs is the realization that he can’t save them all.

Since 2017, Hill has been Columbus director of The Refuge, a faith-based ministry that provides a free, intensive, 13-month rehabilitation program. He oversees the final phases of the men’s program, which involves shepherding newly sober participants back to being productive members of society.

Not everyone makes it.

“Since I started, there’s rarely a month that goes by that I don’t know someone who dies; that’s just how it is,” Hill, 33, said recently from his office at Veritas West church on the Hilltop, which supports the ministry.

He deals with it “by crying a lot—I am not a ‘push it down’ person,” he said. But he also reminds himself of the many success stories.

“When I have exceptionally hard days, I go through those who have completed the program and who are doing really well,” Hill said. “Guys who have a healthy relationship with their kids, who have jobs, who are doing what they need to do.”

The Refuge was founded 20 years ago by Tom and Johnna Thompson. It began as a residential program on a Vinton County farm.

It has since grown into a four-phase program. For men, the first two phases still are on a farm, now in Lancaster. For the final two phases, which Hill oversees, the

Photos by Rob Hardin DIspatch MAgazines

men live in an apartment building on the Hilltop.

There, recent alums of the program serve as coordinators, living with the approximately 40 participants.

Hill affectionately calls it “a Christian commune.”

Hill has no background working with addicts and no formal training or college degree. What he has in abundance, though, is a seemingly bottomless well of compassion, according to those who work with him.

“What struck me with him was his deep care for people, and that’s what mattered to me,” said Wes Thompson, a son of The Refuge founders and pastor at Veritas West, who hired Hill two years ago. “He’s a very selfless person, and that’s ultimately what we wanted more than anything.”

Hill likes to say he was hired because he’s “the right kind of crazy,” his explanation for how a rural Union County kid ended up on the South Side, working with first the homeless and now with people addicted to drugs.

He grew up outside of Marysville in a strongly Christian home. Along with his parents, Mack and Tina, and two brothers, Hill went to church three days a week.

He graduated from Fairbanks High School in 2004, a year before his high school sweetheart, Chelsey. They were married in June 2005, and had their first of three daughters, Mabry, in 2006. She is now 13, and the couple have two other children, Charlie, 10, and Pepper, 7.

Hill had been attending Ohio State, but he left school to support his family, first as a maintenance man in an

“With addiction, these men were breeding destruction and chaos, and they brought a lot of negative things to the community. But now what’s happening is, they are bringing positivity and serving others.”

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apartment complex and then by owning a funnel-cake stand.

Chelsey’s family was in the concession business.

In 2009, Hill’s father died suddenly of colon cancer at age 52. Hill said that loss led him to question how well he was living out his faith.

“I looked at my life, and there was nothing radically different for my kids to look at,” he said. “There was something about my parents, something about my dad that said that he actually cared for people the way Jesus says you’re supposed to.”

“So I looked at who Jesus hung out with and I was like, ‘He had fairly good judgment, so maybe I should hang out with them,’ ” he said.

In 2010, he began volunteering at Stowe Mission on the South Side and “fell in love with the place,” he said, becoming friends with many of the homeless.

He then started trying to convince his wife they should move to the neighborhood. “I was like, ‘I hope your new wife wants to do that,’ because that’s insane,” Chelsey said.

It took years, but the family eventually did move to the South Side in 2014, the same year Hill joined the staff at Stowe.

“It’s hard to be married to somebody like me, I know it is, because I have a lot of passion and it gets me in trouble,” he said. “And if it wasn’t for my wife, we would be probably living in a cardboard box to contextualize with homeless families, so she is this voice of sanity.”

Chelsey, 32, calls her husband, “a uniquely passionate person. He’s definitely a giver.”

At The Refuge, Hill’s job is to work closely with the coordinators. They meet formally twice a week and talk constantly, discussing each participant’s progress.

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“It’s his ability to show a genuine desire to want to help; it’s obvious in the way he carries himself. You know he’d do anything for you, and the guys notice that.”

The coordinators, who all are in recovery, laud Hill for his deep compassion, a trait that resonates with a group of men who might otherwise not listen as closely to someone who has not walked in their shoes.

“It’s his ability to show a genuine desire to want to help; it’s obvious in the way he carries himself,” said Jordan Fillmore, a Refuge alum who now is the group’s administrative manager.

“You know he’d do anything for you, and the guys notice that.”

Hill’s passion includes improving city neighborhoods. He believes strongly that The Refuge participants should serve in the Hilltop and Franklinton areas.

Under his direction, the men collectively have given nearly 3,000 hours of community service since 2017, from picking up trash to volunteering at events and area food pantries.

Mike Wells, director of the Lancaster phases of the Refuge, said he emulated Hill’s example and now has the men there doing community service as well.

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Left: Austin Hill speaks with The Refuge volunteers during an orientation at Veritas Community Church – West.

Austin hill

Top: Hill speaks to people interested in The Refuge.

Neighborhood: South Side

Above: Men fill out applications for treatment at The Refuge.

Inspiration: He is inspired every time he is given the opportunity to come alongside individuals who were broken, and to be a part of their real-life transformation. But what is even more exciting is watching those now-restored individuals take part in restoring and rebuilding their families and communities.

“Before Austin, there was not much outreach at all,” Wells said. “With addiction, these men were breeding destruction and chaos, and they brought a lot of negative things to the community. But now what’s happening is, they are bringing positivity and serving others.”

Hill said his work can be exhausting emotionally, and also physically if he works too many hours. He is learning to draw clearer boundaries between his work and home lives.

If he ever needs inspiration, he can look to his right bicep, upon which he has tattooed a Bible verse that was meaningful to his father.

Micah 6:8 reads: “He has told you, O Man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” Working for justice and trying to show kindness, he said, makes it easier not to dismiss men who drop out of the program, but to focus on those who are succeeding and changing their lives for the better.

“We look at these giant, systemic problems like homelessness or addiction as a problem we’re never going to solve,” Hill said. “But if we invest our time and energy into one person and they’re radically changed, that means everything to them.” H

An obstacle that he has overcome: Realizing that the deep hurt and pain he continually sees in his neighborhoods is not something that will ever be conquered alone. Rather, it is an invitation to join in with the good work others have started before us that we must pass on to the next group of advocates and leaders.

What keeps him engaged: Striving to understand and constantly learn from and with the people who make up the communities he lives and works in.

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Beth Gibson A Mom helps develop a tennis program to include people with Down syndrome.

By Tanisha Thomas The columbus dispatch

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hen Beth Gibson took her son Keegan to tennis lessons at Wickertree Fitness Club, her younger son Will tagged along.

Gibson noticed how fascinated 3-year-old Will was while watching his older brother hit the ball with Doug DiRosario, one of the employees at Wickertree. Will’s interest prompted Gibson and DiRosario to figure out how to teach adaptive tennis to Will, who has Down syndrome, but they encountered a problem.

“We researched on the internet how we could make tennis adaptive for those with Down syndrome, but we found nothing, so we took it in our hands to do something about that,” said DiRosario, 40, of Lewis Center.

The realization prompted Beth and two Wickertree employees, DiRosario and Stephanie Anderson, to create their own tennis program: Buddy Up Tennis. DiRosario and Anderson tested out the idea with Will hitting balloons and bubbles to see how he responded to them, which helped DiRosario and Gibson come up with strategies to add to the program.

Gibson, 51, of New Albany, and DiRosario launched their first Buddy Up Tennis clinic in December 2008, and the clinic became the answer to Gibson’s search for a program that helped kids like Will stay active. After high school, Gibson said, there are not many ongoing fitness programs offered specifically for those with Down syndrome.

Eleven years later, the program has become a fulltime commitment for Gibson, albeit an unpaid one.

Buddy Up Tennis, now a registered nonprofit, has expanded to 22 locations across the country, including seven in Ohio. Each location has a coach leading the program while athletes are partnered with a “buddy” who helps encourage and engage the athlete. Athletes attend weekly 90-minute clinics to do 30 minutes of fitness and 60 minutes of tennis. Nationwide, Buddy Up serves more than 550 athletes and has around 750 buddies volunteering.

Taylor Ruby, 22, of Hilliard, has volunteered as a

Photo by Adam Cairns The columbus dispatch

buddy for seven years. She says Buddy Up has helped her become a better person. “Through this I have learned the value of giving and loving constantly in life,” Ruby said. “There’s no other fulfilling feeling like that in a cause like this.”

At Wickertree, athletes range in age from 5 to 40.

Parents can choose to pay $40 a month for three sessions or $15 for a single session. Scholarships are available.

Equipment, team shirts and court rentals are paid for through fundraising and donations from individuals and corporate partners.

Candace Kane, community relations director for Buddy Up, nominated Gibson for Everyday Heroes because of her dedication and how she goes out of her way to help so many people in the community. “She started this for her son and could’ve stopped there, but she had a vision to not only help her child, but others’ children, too,” Kane said.

The organization has also done demonstrations at the Arnold SportsWorld Kids & Teens Expo in Columbus and attended the U.S. Open in September 2018, where the group played on the center court at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City.

Gibson did not expect a program created for her son to blossom into something bigger that would reach and benefit more athletes, but she is thankful. “This is so much more than tennis,” she said. “This helps them learn life skills that they can take outside the building into the real world.”

Will Gibson, now 14, still enjoys tennis and is grateful for everything he has gained from playing tennis with his mom by his side. “It is fun, mostly since my mom is here court-to-court helping out,” he said.

Joan Magnacca, 57, said the program brings a feeling of inclusion and purpose for her 18-year-old daughter, Maria, who has improved in interactions with friends and in physical ability thanks to the program.

“I’m really thankful there is something like this for our children,” said Magnacca, a Gahanna resident. H

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Rick Bannister The Neighborhood Bridges founder links people in need to those who can help.

By Ellen Wagner The columbus dispatch

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ick Bannister finds heroes. He doesn’t consider himself to be one. Bannister, 54, left his job of 17 years as chief operating officer of the Ohio State Bar Association in January 2017 to start Neighborhood Bridges, a charitable organization that helps those in need in 13 communities in Ohio and Alabama.

“The only thing I’ve done here is, I just believe in others,” Bannister said. “I have a strong conviction in the kindness that exists in all of us.”

Since 2017, more than 15,000 people have been helped by Neighborhood Bridges, and almost 1,000 needs have been filled. In July, 98 percent of the needs requested by the group were filled. Requests for help include clothing, furniture, school fees and money for doctor’s appointments.

Advocates post requests for people in need, who remain anonymous. Advocates can be anyone, but they are commonly teachers, school counselors and others in education. People see the posts on the website, neighborhoodbridges.org, or via email or social media and offer to help. Donations can be taken to local fire stations or picked up by the organization.

“It’s a deliberately simple process,” Bannister said.

“I want it to be very, very simple, because I don’t want there to be any boundaries to kindness.”

Lyn Kinney, who nominated Bannister to be an Everyday Hero, subscribed to Neighborhood Bridges emails after Bannister spoke at a local Rotary Club meeting. She began working for the organization about a year and a half ago.

She thought he deserved to be recognized for his tireless efforts to help his community and others. “Other than emotional and feel-good stuff, he doesn’t get a huge salary, which he reluctantly takes,” Kinney said.

Bannister has lived in Westerville for 45 years. He started dating his wife, Diane, during their senior year at Westerville South High School, and both attended Ohio State University. They decided to stay in Westerville and now have four daughters.

In 1994, he started chairing a committee for the

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Photo by Fred Squillante The columbus dispatch

Westerville Chamber to help negotiate a tax abatement agreement between the city and the schools. He has worked on seven school levy campaigns in Westerville from 1995 to 2016 and will be involved in the school levy issue in November to build new elementary and middle schools.

Bannister joined the Westerville Board of Education in 1996 and served until 2002.

He has spent his free time as a member of the Westerville Sunrise Rotary Club, a volunteer at a food pantry, a member of Westerville athletic boosters and as the “voice of the Wildcats.”

Bannister started announcing softball, football and basketball games at Westerville South in 2003. He also announces softball, men’s volleyball, and men’s and women’s soccer games at Ohio State University.

Bannister said being a parent and working in the community helped him see the needs of its members.

“It occurred to me that any time a community [member] put their hand up and says, ‘We need help with this,’ the community usually rushes in and supports it,” Bannister said. “I thought, why can’t we do that everyday?”

Hilary Stone, who also nominated Bannister, said she has watched Neighborhood Bridges grow over the years. Stone, manager of donor stewardship, research and analytics at the Columbus Foundation, said Neighborhood Bridges represents the desire for community members to help neighbors and lift each other up. “It seems like he created a very scalable model that can be applied and adopted by many different communities,” Stone said.

Over the years, Neighborhood Bridges has expanded to nine cities in Ohio: Dublin, Hilliard, Gahanna, Grove City, New Albany, Sycamore, Upper Arlington, Westerville and Worthington. Bannister has also expanded to four cities in Alabama with help from his brother David, who lives there.

“I am trying to be very thoughtful about how we expand,” Bannister said. “It’s a good thing, and I don’t want to fail.” H

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Sarai Exil Student Success Stores reduce barriers to learning.

By Henry Palattella The columbus dispatch

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hen Sarai Exil signed up for AmeriCorps, which connects young adults with communities in need, she said she wanted to go wherever she was most needed.

She ended up at Columbus City Schools’ LindenMcKinley STEM Academy in the fall of 2011, five hours from her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. Exil committed to doing her best, but she worried she wouldn’t be able to help students during the year and a half she was there.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t have enough energy or enthusiasm,” said Exil, 29. “It wasn’t because I didn’t have enough going on in my head or my heart or my soul. It was just because there are so many non-academic barriers that our students are facing in our school system.”

Those barriers came up again in the summer of 2016, as Exil, who graduated from Ohio State University a year earlier with a communications degree, listened to Columbus City Schools teacher Nicole Hebert-Ford talk about how she wanted to create stores in schools where kids could get basic needs. Exil thought back to her two years at Linden-McKinley, where she routinely found herself buying basic supplies for students. She introduced herself to Hebert-Ford, and Student Success Stores were born.

The stores are set up in schools and stock items such as food, clothes, shoes, body wash, bras and underwear, tampons and toiletries. Even though they’re called stores, all the items are free; all students need to do is set up an appointment or visit the stores during open periods.

“The fact that Sarai identified that need in some of our most impoverished schools and helps provide those students with support is incredible.”

Photo by Fred Squillante The columbus dispatch

In July, the stores celebrated their third anniversary.

Four more schools added the stores this summer, bringing the total to nine. The schools were first placed in middle schools due to the changes facing students at that age.

“Middle school is such an awkward time, and sometimes these kids don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” Exil said. “We’re expecting our students to come in ready to learn, and we’re expecting so much of our teachers that somehow they’re just going to miraculously take away all these nonacademic barriers.”

The Student Success Stores and the storage center on Morse Road are staffed by volunteers. Students can visit the stores every school day.

For those around Exil, the stores and what they do continue to amaze. “The fact that Sarai identified that need in some of our most impoverished schools and helps provide those students with support is incredible,” said Matthew Goldstein, CEO of Besa, a nonprofit that has helped supply the Success Stores with volunteers to work in the stores and warehouses. “It feels wonderful to be a part of her vision.”

About 67 percent of the students at Wedgewood Middle School live below the federal poverty level, so as soon as principal Diane Campbell found out about the Student Success Stores, she pushed to have one added to Wedgewood last school year.

“The store is near and dear to my heart, because it’s something I would have needed as a kid,” Campbell said. “To be able to provide something that is a necessity means a lot.”

In addition to serving as the president of the Student Success Stores board, Exil also works at Big Lots as its philanthropy and events specialist. While it can be tough for her to balance the Student Success Stores on top of her full-time job, the impact it has on the community is something that makes it all worth it.

“The most beautiful thing about the stores is that I can sit down with someone and talk about it with them and they immediately get it,” Exil said. “They understand the importance and want to try to help. That’s the Columbus way.” H

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Finalist

Tracy Kronk A volunteer’s nonprofit serves hundreds of kids in rural Ohio.

By Erica Thompson The columbus dispatch

F

or many kids, an extra day off school is like hitting the jackpot. Holidays, snow days or teachers’ workdays can bring treasures like more TV time, more internet hours and more sleep in the morning.

But some kids would rather be in school.

A mom of four, Tracy Kronk glimpsed that reality when she was volunteering in her child’s classroom at Norwood Elementary. She made a comment to a young boy about how hard it must be to come back following a three-day weekend.

“He just looked at me from his paper, and he says, ‘Mrs. Kronk, when I’m at home I don’t get to eat. I only eat when I get breakfast and lunch at school,’ ” Kronk recalled. “And I still, to this day, don’t have a response that would have been appropriate to give him at that time.”

Instead, Kronk took action, slipping extra food in his backpack and, unbeknownst to her, setting off a chain reaction. “By the end of the week, it was two [kids],” she said. “In two weeks, it was 17. Now you flash forward, seven and a half years later, and I’m at 600.”

Operating the nonprofit Sufficient Grace, Kronk, 43, and her team of volunteers serve students in grades pre-K through 12 in school districts in Madison, Union and Clark counties. Each week, they meet at West Jefferson United Methodist Church to assemble boxes of evening and weekend meals. Contents include nonperishable, easy-to-prepare items like ramen noodles, pudding and granola bars.

With hopes to add all schools in the Northeastern

Photos by Rob Hardin DIspatch MAgazines

Local School District in the near future, Kronk anticipates that she soon could be helping between 800 and 900 students.

But it all started in West Jefferson, about 20 miles west of Columbus, where Kronk lives with her husband and kids. Appearances would not immediately suggest a hunger problem in the community.

“It’s a cute little country town,” said volunteer Michaele Budd. “There’s the antique shops, the pizza places, the little doctor’s offices. And you just don’t think that you’re going to find hungry people here, hungry children here. And yet there’s a need.”

Kronk was similarly surprised. “Hard times are kind of secret, and they fall on everybody, no matter what their house or their car look like,” she said. “So that was probably a real eye-opener for me.”

Drug abuse in Ohio, which has one of the highest opioid overdose rates in the country, also is a contributing factor. “What we see is, there are so many parents who are, unfortunately, caught up in the drug community,” said Barbara Rife, president of the London Lions Club, which helps raise money for Sufficient Grace. “And it’s the children that suffer. It’s the money that should be spent to feed and clothe the children that just isn’t used that way.”

“I have a heart for the rural area because I know that it’s hard for those kids to get access,” Kronk said. “They can’t walk to a program after school. Once you’re bused home, you’re home. So being that we’re allowed in the school system is a really magic thing for us.”

“I have a heart for the rural area because I know that it’s hard for those kids to get access. … So being that we’re allowed in the school system is a really magic thing for us.”

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Tracy Kronk and Sufficient Grace volunteers pack food boxes for students at the West Jefferson United Methodist Church pantry.

Kronk said it takes about $15,000 per month to feed all the children in the Sufficient Grace program. Receiving donations helps, but in the early years, especially before she had 501(c)(3) status, she didn’t know how she’d manage at times.

“The money ends up showing up,” Kronk said. “You pray on it, and you tell your volunteers. They’re really great about spreading the word, and it gets supported.”

Seeing that continuous provision over the years has had a significant impact on Kronk’s oldest daughter, Mary, a 19-year-old college student. “It actually helped my faith grow,” Mary said. “There’s been some months when we were days before the deadline, and we didn’t have enough money.

You can’t just tell the kids, ‘Hey, sorry, we don’t have food this week.’ … But it would come down to like the night before and somehow something would come together.”

Kronk’s own spiritual beliefs have informed the entire nonprofit, which she describes as a calling. Its name comes from a Bible verse, 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And she waits for schools to come to her, believing their requests are in line with God’s will.

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“I don’t want to overstep what the Lord can supply me with and where he wants me to be,” she said.

Sufficient Grace does more than provide nourishment to the students; it allows them to form meaningful relationships outside of their homes.

“You can just tell how important it is to them, knowing that somebody cares about them,” said Melissa Ferguson, the nurse for West Jefferson Local Schools. “The ladies from the church that come and pass the food out—those kids learn their names, and they hug them. They just feel loved.”

Additionally, seeing the same school staff each week has other positive effects. “There were a couple of students who were dealing with a domestic violence issue in their home,” said Melissa Canney, a student support specialist in London City Schools. “And when the teacher contacted me about this and the students saw me, they instantly knew me from getting Sufficient Grace. They already had trust with me. It made it easier for them to be able to talk to me.”

Because the process is discreet and open to anyone, parents can receive assistance without feeling ashamed. “Parents are more likely to accept the help because they don’t have to

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tracy kronk Neighborhood: West Jefferson Who inspires you? “As cliché as it may sound, my answer would have to be Jesus,” she said. “I was given a great gift when I was redeemed. How better to appreciate His love for me than by spreading love and kindness to precious children?”

come in and fill out paperwork or come stand in line to pick up the food,” Ferguson said. “It’s sent home with their child.”

Sufficient Grace also has transformed the lives of its volunteers, opening their eyes to the extent of the hunger issue, allowing them to form new friendships and inspiring them.

“It’s a nice fellowship,” Budd said of her time preparing the boxes with the other volunteers. “We talk about our lives, our families, what’s going on in our community. … I do some things outside of here with some of these people.”

“She just keeps going,” said Kronk’s neighbor, Nena J. Dillon, who nominated her for the Everyday Heroes recognition.

“I keep thinking, ‘OK, she’s going to tell these next people no, but she never tells them no.’ ” Kronk doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon. In fact, she’s hoping Sufficient Grace will get its own facility as it is outgrowing the church pantry.

“I think she’s a savior,” said volunteer Donna Johnson.

“She’s saving some of these kids.”

Kronk may be too humble to agree, but she has accepted another title given to her by a kindergartener in the early days of Sufficient Grace.

“It’s you,” he said after finally meeting Kronk face-to-face.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“I thought I had a food fairy that left food ‘cause they knew I was hungry.”

Kronk eventually learned he was the little brother of the very first boy she helped.

“It was really a surreal thing,” she said. “If food fairies exist, I’m happy to be that.” H

What keeps you engaged? Hearing stories of positive impact simply from the receipt of a box of food and a kind person handing it to them. One example: There was a first-grade boy who previously lived in a severely food-insecure environment and was now living with stepgrandparents.

Upon coming to live with them, he was anxious and couldn’t sleep. Once he started receiving his SG box, he placed it on his dresser at night and said he could sleep better knowing he wasn’t going to be hungry anymore.

“Sometimes peace for a child is simply not being hungry,” Kronk said. “I am blessed to have a small part in that.

Food items waiting to be packed into Sufficient Grace food boxes; below, filled boxes ready for distribution

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Peggy Osborne Rice A mother honors her daughter’s memory by helping addicts.

By Ben Deeter The columbus dispatch

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n April 2012, Peggy Osborne Rice came home to find her 24-year-old daughter, Autumn Coleman, on the floor of her bedroom. Her daughter’s boyfriend was passed out on the bed, no more than an arm’s length away.

“My first thought was ‘Girl, what are you doing?’ ” Rice said. She thought Autumn had fallen asleep on the floor.

But when she walked to her daughter, she realized something had gone horribly wrong. Autumn had died of a heroin overdose.

In the months and years after her daughter’s death, Rice struggled with how to move forward. “After it happened, I spent two or three years in a dream world,” she said. “Emotionally, I wasn’t there to connect with everyone around me.”

One day, though, she decided enough was enough.

She concluded she needed to make sure this doesn’t happen to someone else.

“I got up one day and got tired of being mad,” said Rice, now 56 and living near Marysville. “It was like her telling me, ‘Mom, just stop being mad. Stop.’ ” In 2015, Rice and her family started “Autumn’s Way Thru Helping Others,” a foundation that provides support and information for opioid users and others. The group sells shirts and bracelets to provide financial assistance for funerals, pay for IDs needed to enter rehab and assist the needy in any way they can. The group receives donations, including money and personal items.

Rice often drives around Columbus neighborhoods and passes out those supplies (hygiene products, clothes, food and more) in small “street bags.” Since founding the group, Rice estimates she has helped 150 people get into clinics or rehabilitation programs and has handed out between 3,000 and 5,000 street bags.

She will even drive people to clinics if they cannot get there themselves. “She just works so hard. It’s truly remarkable what she does,” said Misty Greeley, Rice’s

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Photo by Kyle Robertson The columbus dispatch

36-year-old daughter and Autumn’s older sister, who works with her mother on Autumn’s Way. “It’s not easy for her to see these people out here. She knows they’re hungry, she knows they don’t want to live like this.”

Born in Missouri and raised in Big Sandy, West Virginia, Rice came to Ohio to escape an abusive relationship and create a better life for herself and her two children.

She started her own painting company in Columbus and worked for nearly 20 years before retiring 15 years ago. Autumn’s Way has had her full-time attention since its founding. Her big goal now is to gain nonprofit status for the group so she can expand the operation and help more people.

“It brings tears to my eyes to think about the kind of person she is,” said Jennifer Ball, a friend of Rice’s who has donated to Autumn’s Way several times. “She has taken what she went through and has made it into such a positive thing.”

More than seven years since her daughter’s death, Rice continues to visit Autumn’s grave at Green Lawn Cemetery every other day. Blue, red and purple flowers line the stone in a half-circle. Most of them are blue, as it was Autumn’s favorite. A small football sits among the flowers, a memorial to her love of Ohio State football.

Rice keeps a visible reminder of Autumn with her at all times: a tattoo of a blue butterfly on her upper left arm. “A butterfly and its wings represent the need to always be free,” she said. “She just had the biggest heart.

There are good and bad days, just missing her.”

Rice also lost her 32-year-old niece, Samantha Dalton, to an overdose in 2017. She intends to continue pushing with her organization to make sure what happened to Autumn doesn’t happen to someone else.

“I knew that if something wasn’t done,” she said, “I would just not survive. I want to do more.” H

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Abby Lewis an Ohio State student entertains and supports pediatric cancer patients.

By Ashton Nichols The columbus dispatch

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bby Lewis has an alter ego.

You can often find her dressed in a pink, floor-length dress, sporting a long, braided blonde wig. As Rapunzel, she entertains children with pediatric cancer, and she’s rarely seen without a smile on her face.

Pediatric cancer hits close to home with Lewis. Her younger sister had leukemia, relapsed twice but survived, which inspired Lewis to give back to the organizations that had helped her sister. In high school, she worked with childhood cancer organizations and other nonprofit groups.

When the Oakhurst, New Jersey, native came to Ohio State University, she didn’t see a club that allowed her to interact with kids in the manner in which she hoped.

So Lewis started a chapter of A Moment of Magic, a nonprofit that allows college students to volunteer at children’s hospitals and interact with children. Popular programs include visits from princesses and superheroes. “You’re able to go and visit these kids personally and form connections with them,” she said.

Lewis, now 21 and a senior studying economics, has been the chapter president for the past two years. This school year she will still be involved, but decided to pass along the presidency torch to Emma Smith.

Smith met Lewis two years ago at the very first A Moment of Magic meeting. “I instantly wanted to be her friend,” said Smith, a senior studying nursing. “She’s the kind of person that when she walks into the room, she brings the kind of energy that you just want to be around and be a part of. I think that’s why she was able to make our club so successful.”

Lewis said when she started the chapter in 2017, the group included her and 11 others. Now, the chapter has more than 50 active members.

The organization offers programming in the form of character visits, Lewis said. “We have our characters

Photo by Eric Albrecht The columbus dispatch

in training go through training of makeup and costuming, because you want these kids to believe that they’re real,” she said.

The group usually goes to hospitals and other nonprofits and will often color with the children, hang out and answer questions about their character. “I love their faces right when we walk in,” Lewis said. “It makes them feel really special, because a lot of these kids don’t really get visitors. Us going in there being their favorite character, their reaction kind of takes your breath away for a second.”

To be cast as a character, the member must submit an application to the national A Moment of Magic office, Lewis said, who then decides what character the person is most like. “Usually you stick to one character the whole time,” Lewis said. “It’s helpful to do it that way, because these kids know everything to know about these characters.”

Smith and Lewis became close friends through the organization, and Smith said she has some pretty big shoes to fill when she replaces Lewis as president.

“She’s amazing at just about everything she does,” Smith said. “The passion that she brings to it and the passion that she inspires to our club members is beautiful. She has [made] a huge difference in my life, not only through this club but outside of this club.”

Smith said Lewis is driven, compassionate and funny. “She has that good sense of humor that can diffuse a situation and make everybody who is a little bit nervous or uncomfortable feel a little bit more relaxed.”

Kylee McGrane is the founder and executive director for A Moment of Magic. McGrane, who nominated Lewis for Everyday Heroes, said she has a unique perspective on working with children with cancer.

“It’s been a pleasure working with her for the last two years,” McGrane said. “I can’t think of anyone else more deserving of the title of ‘hero.’ ” H

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David McIntyre A Circleville police officer works tirelessly to help kids feel safe.

By Ceili Doyle The columbus dispatch

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avid McIntyre doesn’t stop moving.

Armed with a Monster Energy drink and an infectious drive, the Circleville police officer carried foldable traffic cones in one hand and internet-safety pamphlets in the other while setting up his station for Circleville’s annual Touch a Truck event. The event is an opportunity for the community to get to know their emergency responders, either by climbing aboard fire engines, shaking hands with the sheriff or chatting with McIntyre about what local police officers do.

In the back of McIntyre’s police-issued Ford Explorer, there are folding tables sandwiched between first-aid kits, rolls of stickers on top of a fire extinguisher and two cases of water, just to be prepared. “I used to be a Boy Scout,” he offered with a smile.

McIntyre, 39, wears a lot of hats. He’s a safety resource officer for Circleville City Schools, but acts more as a guidance counselor, disciplinarian and father figure. He still works regular shifts at the police department and found time last year to start Foundations4Youth, a communitybased nonprofit dedicated to giving kids a place to relax and be happy.

Every Tuesday all year long, McIntyre can be found helping feed anywhere from 60 to 120 kids at the Foundations4Youth center.

Carrie Carver, Circleville schools parent-teacher organization president, works with McIntyre to organize events and solicit donations and volunteers. “Without Dave, we wouldn’t have the center,” said Carver, 40. “He saves lives, and I don’t think anyone has a bad word to say about him.”

When her 9-year-old son, Andrew, who is in middle school, finally left the hospital after battling lung issues last December, McIntyre set up the Carvers’ Christmas tree and arranged for the SWAT team to visit Andrew at home.

McIntyre teaches internet safety classes for kindergarten through eighth grade, acts as a liaison between the courts and kids in probation and still finds the time

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to run the Circleville police and Foundations4Youth social media accounts on top of his daily patrol at school.

“When I think of Dave, I see him with over 100 students—feeding 5-year-olds, talking to the seventh-grade girls and playing football with high-schoolers,” said Circleville schools superintendent Jonathan Davis.

Not many people know McIntyre is also a father of three: Kiley, 16; Luke, 14; and Natalie, 11. He’s a single dad and tries his best to juggle his commitment to the community and his kids, but it’s no easy feat.

“I’m not very good at saying no,” McIntyre admitted.

He tries not to bring work home, but his kids do help out at Foundations4Youth. “They’re volun-told,” he explained with a laugh.

During a recent lunch, McIntyre tried to point to the 80 voicemails and 300-plus unanswered emails in his inbox as evidence that he’s far from worthy of all this praise. But he was hardly able to finish his point before a delivery man interrupted McIntyre to thank the officer for everything he does for the community.

“No one cares more, man,” he told McIntyre.

“Thank you.”

McIntyre brushed the compliment aside with a shy smile.

In his mind it all comes down to the basic principles you learn in kindergarten: don’t steal, be kind and treat others with respect.

McIntyre grew up in Circleville and was raised by a single mom who sent him to live on his grandparents’ farm as a teen so he would “stay out of trouble.” He studied agriculture management at the University of Northwestern Ohio in Lima, but became a cop 14 years ago because he couldn’t sit with the idea that so many people felt entitled to take advantage of others.

Three years ago, McIntyre found his calling as a safety resource officer working with kids, making sure they understand that life’s hardships are only a single moment.

“The situation you’re in now isn’t the situation you’ll always be in,” he said. “There’s always room for improvement, there’s always room for growth and change.” H

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Mercy Ovuworie A Prayer Warrior coordinates special meals for less fortunate folks.

By Kevin Corvo ThisWeek Community News

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hristmas morning holds common traditions for most—exchanging gifts, worship, spending time with family.

Westerville resident Mercy Ovuworie has a Christmas tradition, too, but it involves helping make the holiday as special as possible for hundreds of homeless and less-fortunate people at Faith Mission on East Eighth Avenue in Columbus.

For almost 20 years, the 62-year-old wife, mother and grandmother has spent about six hours each Christmas making sure the people who line up outside Faith Mission enjoy a meal with all the trappings.

“And if it’s something [we don’t have], she goes out of her way to pay for it, because she knows it is needed to round out a hearty meal,” said Vanita Nevis, a 2017 Everyday Hero who nominated Ovuworie.

The two women met around 2002, when Ovuworie became a member of the Prayer Warriors, led by Vince Davis. The Prayer Warriors also served dinners at Faith Mission, and after Davis died in 2006, Ovuworie stepped in. “I wanted to continue his legacy,” she said.

“I told her if she wanted to do it, I’d be there with her,” said Nevis, who continues to help with the planning of special-events meals at Faith Mission.

“It’s her who gets all the volunteers together and keeps it all going,” Nevis said.

Westerville resident Mercy Ovuworie has a Christmas tradition ... helping make the holiday as special as possible for hundreds of homeless and less-fortunate people.

Photo by Lorrie Cecil ThisWeek Community News

After Davis’ death, Ovuworie renamed the organization that serves the meals at Faith Mission to the Friends of Vince Davis. Organizing the events at Faith Mission has provided Ovuworie with the opportunity to help people beyond her capacity as a nurse at OhioHealth Marion General Hospital, she said.

With the help of her husband, Fidelis, and their three children, the family’s Christmas Day ritual turned into weeks of planning, including the deployment of dozens of volunteers to carry out each event. “It takes about 40 to 50 volunteers,” said Ovuworie, who makes calls and sends emails to assemble the volunteer team.

The hours invested to marshal the volunteers, obtain and prepare the food and serve the meals come after her full-time job as a nurse, a job that followed her certification from nursing school at Otterbein College and her immigration to the United States from Nigeria.

Meals are served daily at Faith Mission, but the Christmas Day meal and the summer picnic on the second Saturday of August represent an effort much greater than the mission’s typical meals. “We serve meals every day, but these are special meals that include all kinds of foods that aren’t usually served here or any other kinds of shelters,” Ovuworie said.

For the summer picnic, the fare includes barbecued ribs, fresh fruits and a variety of desserts. As many as 300 people are fed at the summer picnic, Ovuworie said. The number of people served during the Christmas Day meals usually is a little fewer, Ovuworie said.

When Ovuworie first began organizing the meals, her three children—between the ages of 28 and 35— would join her and her husband at the Faith Mission from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each Christmas. “We all went together to help make sure everyone was fed,” she said.

“Mercy has given up her family Christmas these past years to ensure that those less fortunate have a meal, a smile and a prayer to provide a merry Christmas [and] a wonderful cookout in the summer,” Nevis said. H

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Finalist

Imran Malik An interfaith leader brings people of all religions together when the world threatens to divide.

By Holly Zachariah The columbus dispatch

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mran Malik shares only a couple of sentences of the story he is telling before he pauses, and his dark eyes gaze off into the distance. Though his body remains in that leather chair in his family’s Dublin living room, emotion has swept his mind back to a hospital room where the drone of beeping machines pounds in his head and fear threatens to drown him.

It was 2004, and Malik and his wife, Atifa, were huddled around the incubator that held their second son, Raiyaan-Ali. The umbilical cord had been wrapped around the infant’s neck at birth, and there were complications.

So the couple found themselves rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, hoping for answers and clinging to prayer.

“As a father, I didn’t know what was happening,” Malik recalled. “As a family, we were scared.”

But as their son’s 20-day stay wore on, the Maliks noticed the overwhelming kindness of strangers.

“They would bring toys. They would bring gifts.

They would bring blankets. People, everywhere. Who are all these people?” he wondered. “I asked and I found they were volunteers. All of this love coming our way from people who didn’t know us? It was a turning point in our lives. This is really the way we make the world a better place. We will be catalysts. We will make small gestures of love.”

Born in Pakistan and raised in Bahrain, Malik immi-

Photos by Rob Hardin dispatch Magazines

grated to the United States in 1996 to study engineering at Wright State University in Dayton. Though he uses his degrees and works in the telecommunications industry, it is through his roles as interfaith and outreach coordinator at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Hilliard and as a leader of the local interfaith community that he has made his mark. Malik’s friends and colleagues hold him up as a community pillar, an indefatigable faith leader, a comforter in times of sadness and a uniter in times of turmoil.

“I have found Imran to be a ray of light in a pretty dark world, especially the past couple of years when social justice and social change has been a challenging business to be in,” said Rabbi Sharon Mars of Temple Israel on East Broad Street. “He has a really built-in sense of when and how we need to come together as a faith community. So many of us look to him as our faith compass, and he is the voice of calm.”

Since arriving in Columbus in 2005, Malik has taken the lead in pulling together practitioners of all faiths— Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and so many others—for common community goals and to foster better understanding, Mars said.

She said that Malik is at his best when the world is at its worst, just as he proved in the hours and days that followed the news in October that a gunman had stormed the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where three separate congregations were conducting

“This is really the way we make the world a better place. We will be catalysts. We will make small gestures of love.”

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Imran Malik chats with a fellow congregant in the hallway of Noor Islamic Cultural Center.

“We have to find love, beauty and passion in God’s diversity.”

Above: Texts in the library of the center Below: Malik receives a hug from a fellow worshipper following prayers at the center.

Sabbath services. Eleven people died. The following week, Malik and his family and friends showed up at Temple Israel.

He carried two dozen white roses and delivered hundreds of cards written by the children of his mosque.

“They came to my synagogue to sit in meditation and breathe the same air, and it was exactly the kind of response we needed to counter the hate in the world,” Mars said.

“There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in Imran’s world.”

Malik, 44, excused himself so that he could wipe away his tears when recounting the story of his sick child, who now is a healthy and active 15-year-old middle schooler. The couple also has another son, 17-year-old Hussnain, and a 10-year old daughter, Soha. But that wasn’t the only time his emotions got the best of him, because there have been many people and many instances that have influenced and changed him, he said.

His understanding of boundless love started when, as a boy in Bahrain, he watched his mother shower it upon everyone. Those living in the Middle Eastern region at the time were aware of the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and chemical warfare was a very real fear.

“We learned to cover ourselves with towels for protection,

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y.”

Imran Malik Neighborhood: Dublin Inspiration: His late mother, the empathy she taught him, the good work he saw her do in her community to motivate him and and the values for love and understanding that were her core beliefs.

What keeps him engaged: His family and his community. “We have to find love, beauty and passion in God’s diversity,” Malik says. “God has created us all differently for a purpose.”

A challenge he has overcome: Immigrating to the U.S. for college was not easy. But this quickly became home for Malik. And, as a Muslim, the hatred and bigotry expressed against so many cultures and religions does not always avoid him.

“You balance hatred and condemnation with love and affection,” he said. “It is the only way.”

to always be mindful of what could happen,” he said. But his parents were strong, and his mother, Kishwar, was always speaking up for what she thought was right, always figuring out how to help anyone who needed it.

Bahrain was a pivotal hub during the Gulf War, with combat planes roaring through the skies and patriot missiles whistling overhead. Malik remembers that any time there was a threat, his mother sheltered her own family first—but then she always headed outside.

“She would make sure the neighbors and the children were all safe,” he recalled, tears in his eyes once again. “My mother believed in humanity. She went beyond our borders to help others. She demonstrated love, she did not just talk about it.”

Kishwar Malik died in 2009, but it was her teachings of understanding and her appreciation of different cultures that drove his commitment to make the Noor Islamic Cultural Center a beacon of solidarity in what can sometimes seem to be an otherwise fractured society.

Malik has thrown open the doors to the mosques; he leads classes such as Muslim 101 and hosts events during religious periods such as Ramadan to help those of other faiths understand its significance. Together the interfaith council hosts panels and conversations, performs community service, holds charity drives and participates in

nonreligious community events.

“We often get too hung up on theoretical approaches,” Malik said. “When the chaos occurs, it is always our differences that are amplified. But at the end of the day, everyone just wants to do good work.”

The Rev. Tim Ahrens recalled a meeting a few years ago to discuss the opening of what is now Washington Gladden Social Justice Park, built next to Ahrens’ First Congregational Church on Broad Street. Faith and community leaders had gathered to talk about the plans, but there was an empty seat at the table. Malik was late.

When he arrived, he apologized. He had been up the street meeting with a family whose child had been wounded in the crossfire of a neighborhood gun battle.

“He is the real deal,” Ahrens said. “The rest of us were sitting around a table and talking, and Imran? He was out there doing.”

Malik is uncomfortable with taking credit or hearing praise. After all, he says, we’re all in this together, and we all have a responsibility to shine a light in darkness.

He is proud of the interfaith work this community has done, but recognizes there is a long road ahead. He likes to think he understands the way, though.

“Fighting hatred with hatred is only going to create more chaos,” he said. “Bringing people together is really the only solution at hand.” H

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Jen Kanagy A nurse starts Newark Homeless Outreach to help those in need.

By Nate Ellis ThisWeek Community News

Y

ou could be a single mother escaping domestic violence and struggling to feed your children, or a drug addict living under a bridge. To Jen Kanagy, you’re someone who needs help to find housing or support to get mental-health or substance-abuse treatment.

“We think every person has value, worth and deserves respect,” said Kanagy, co-founder of Newark Homeless Outreach, along with Patricia Perry. “They can always count on us.”

People in Newark can count on Kanagy and Perry to man the corner of East Main Street and Buena Vista Avenue—hot or cold, rain or shine—from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday.

They’ve done so since January 2017, when they began handing out coats after meeting at Newark’s first Women’s March, which Kanagy organized.

Since that time, they’ve expanded the outreach to include free handouts of everything from grilled sandwiches to clothing and personal items. They also provide heroin and methamphetamine users with strips to test their drugs for fentanyl, and they provide Narcan and Narcan training so people can reverse the effects of opiate overdoses.

Over the roughly 30 months they’ve been operating, Kanagy and Perry have gone from paying for all the food and other items they hand out weekly to receiving support from a core group of volunteers who contribute items of need.

They’ve also increased the number of people they’re helping from about 25 to nearly 135 a week.

“We were just two moms on the corner with a grill,” said Kanagy, a 25-year nurse specializing in dialysis and general practice. “Now, we’re serving 100 to 135 people each Saturday.”

“Once the community started to see what we were doing, the outpouring from Newark, Heath and Granville has been tremendous,” she added.

Kanagy admitted not everyone supports Newark Homeless Outreach’s cause. She said some city leaders have questioned their tactics, and some in the com-

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munity have offered disparaging comments on the group’s Facebook page.

But that hasn’t stopped Kanagy and others from trying to help link victims of domestic violence, as well as the homeless, to safe housing. It also hasn’t dissuaded them from providing “harm-reduction” services such as fentanyl-testing strips and encouragement to seek treatment, with a goal of helping people stay alive until they’re ready to get clean.

“Jen is one of the most compassionate, energetic people I know,” said Andrea Eastman, who nominated Kanagy as an Everyday Hero after meeting her on Licking County political campaigns trails and seeing the work of Newark Homeless Outreach. “When something needs [to be] done, she just does it.”

“She speaks her mind freely and openly, and whatever anybody needs, it’s given freely and without question,” Eastman says. “Jen has always tried to be a voice for people who don’t have a voice.”

Kanagy said Newark Homeless Outreach doesn’t have rules. “If you need it and we have it, take it,” she said. “We’re just meeting people where they are.

They might be ready for treatment, or they may just be ready for a warm sandwich and to go back under the bridge.”

In May, Newark Homeless Outreach held a 5K event that raised more than $2,000 to support its causes, and it also recently secured a United Way grant for more than $4,900.

The funds will help Kanagy and Perry continue to distribute food, harm-reduction supplies and information as they network with groups in the region that provide resources for safe and affordable housing, as well as mental-health and substance-abuse treatment.

“We have people who’ve come out of a domesticviolence situation and are homeless; we’ve had people who’ve lost their jobs,” Kanagy said. “There are the haves, and you drive down the hill and there are the have-nots. We’re out here spreading kindness and sharing love, and we’re just going to keep doing what we do until there’s no one left that needs us.” H

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Mary Wetterauer A Worthington resident is known for a multitude of good deeds.

By Olivia Minnier thisweek community news

F

or Mary Wetterauer, giving to others is simply how she was taught to live her life. The 75-yearold Worthington resident always tries to go above and beyond for everyone—values instilled in her from a young age. “I think I came to want to help people from my parents,” she said.

Wetterauer said her father, Thomas Funaro, worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. as she grew up in Columbus’ Linworth and Northland neighborhoods.

Even though her family didn’t have a lot, she said her parents always did what they could for others. The family had a pear tree, and her mother, Rose Funaro (also known by her maiden name, Merendo), used the fruit to bake pies and cakes for the nuns and priests at St. Peter Roman Catholic Church on Smoky Row Road in North Columbus. Wetterauer also said she worked as a nurse for decades, which inspired her to help others.

Many of Wetterauer’s contributions came after she joined the Worthington United Methodist Church, 600 High St., 52 years ago. She said she grew up Catholic but became a Methodist after meeting her late husband, Damon, who died in 2013.

Over the years, Wetterauer said, she has volunteered for the church and served as a paid secretary.

She said she “has a great relationship with everyone” at the church.

Laurie Schmidt-Moats, a resident of the Worthington Hills neighborhood in Columbus, was one of several people who nominated Wetterauer as an Everyday Hero.

She said she met Wetterauer through the church in 1987.

Schmidt-Moats said Wetterauer has “a special place in heaven” because she is the most selfless person she knows.

She added that she noticed Wetterauer’s ability to step in when others needed her.

“They need help, and she’s just right there to kindly and quietly be a comfort to people,” she said.

Schmidt-Moats said Wetterauer took piano lessons

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from Janice Cook, who also taught both her sons. “[Wetterauer] was always at the recitals and very supportive of all of the kids,” Schmidt-Moats said.

Cook, who lives in the Olentangy Highlands neighborhood on Worthington’s western border, also was among those who nominated Wetterauer as an Everyday Hero.

She said she, too, met Wetterauer through the church and has taught her piano lessons for 20 years.

During that time, she has witnessed Wetterauer help others many times. “She’s just one of the most special people on Earth,” Cook said.

Wetterauer began the piano lessons when she was caring for her husband, who had Alzheimer’s disease.

“We had this music bond,” Cook said.

Through everything, Cook said, she was impressed by how Wetterauer continued to live a life of service dedicated to others. Furthermore, Cook said, she wanted to nominate Wetterauer on behalf of all of the people Wetterauer has helped over the years, many of whom were ailing and received care and assistance from her until their deaths.

Wetterauer also finds value in doing the little things.

Schmidt-Moats said Wetterauer volunteers to make meals, shop for groceries and run other errands.

Wetterauer said she gives friends rides to medical appointments and plays with her grandchildren for a few hours to give their parents a break. She said she also takes care of several “fur babies” for neighbors and friends.

Wetterauer said she refuses payment for her help.

Instead, she tells those she helps to “go do another good deed.” She said she hopes to pass on her perspective to her family, which has 40 members when they all get together. “I’m trying to instill this in my grandsons,” she said.

She said they have helped her volunteer with the church and other activities. When it comes down to it, Wetterauer said, she just simply “tries to be a good person.” H

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