Common Threads gets boost thanks to Central Christian
PHOTO BY CHRISTINA McCUNE | Gazette & News
Central Christian students and staff traveled from Kidron to Common Threads in Barberton for Community Service Day. Cindy Bach, front left, said the timing was great because students helped them sort items, and also make meatballs for a fundraiser during the Barberton Mum Festival.
By CHRISTINA McCUNE
BGNN managing editor
Central Christian seniors down to the youngest kindergartners – as well as staff members – participated in a time-honored tradition and also lived out one of the school’s core values: service to others.
For the 56th year, Central Christian School students and staff participated in the annual Community Service Day.
All students grades kindergarten through 12, as well as faculty and staff, served local nonprofit agencies, churches, neighborhoods and community organizations on Sept. 26 “to share Christ’s love through hands-on service,” according to a news release from the school.
Central Christian School is an accredited kindergarten through Grade 12 school in the community of Kidron in Wayne County, which is committed to Anabaptist faith and practice and operating under a Corporation of Affiliated Congregations.
Saralyn Stjernholm, CCS senior, joined classmates who may have traveled farthest on Sept. 26. They rode a bus driven by Becky Carter, dean of students, to Common Threads Closet, which is in the lower level of Lakeview United Methodist Church, 211 Third St. NW, Barberton in Summit County.
“I learned about Common Threads Closet and how they’re able to help people all over Ohio,” Stjernholm said. “We were able to help put things together, make food for the event they’re doing tomorrow and it was a way we could help serve.”
Students selected from a list their top five choices of where they wished to serve on CSD and Stjernholm chose Common Threads as a top choice because she enjoys sorting and organizing.
“You just feel encouraged,” she said about the service day, “because you know that whatever you’re doing is going to be a blessing to someone else.”
Cristian Kozel, CCS junior, also chose Common Threads as one of his top choices.
“I remember helping with kids at a children’s home in Bolivia,” said Kozel, who is originally from Bolivia and has attended Central Christian School the past few years, “and I like to help those in need who don’t have resources to be able to help themselves.”
Kozel worked in the kitchen to help prepare meatballs that were going to be meatball subs for a fundraiser during the Barberton Mum Festival. He helped take large dog food bags and portion the food into smaller bags to make the dog food more portable and to spread the food out to more people with pets.
“It makes me feel really good because it’s giving back to those who can’t do stuff themselves and there’s also people who need help but they don’t know how to ask,” he said.
He said he was hoping even someone seeing that they could easily pick up a bag of dog food to take with them for their pet will make their day a bit better.
CCS students in grades 9-12 served 17 nonprofit organizations in Wayne, Holmes, Stark and Summit counties. The eighth-grade class served at Lighthouse Ministries in Canton. Students in kindergarten through seventh grade planned and carried out service projects with their families.
Their efforts included washing ambulances, cleaning up local parks and neighborhoods, baking cookies and delivering them with handwritten notes to nursing homes, firehouses, and hospitals, and other service activities.
Community Service Day projects ranged from outdoor work and building maintenance to preparing resources for families in need. Students power washed and painted, knotted comforters, organized donations, stocked “Caring Closets,” distributed playground mulch, prepared food, and served as classroom aides for children with special needs.
How Common Threads Closet in Barberton came to be on the list of options students could choose is thanks to 1969 CCS graduate Doug Mitchell.
The Barberton resident enjoys telling the story about how he was a Norton High School student but he had a “disagreement with management” and he was forced to search for another school to attend to finish out his high school. He visited Central Christian School and a female student his age caught his eye at a drinking fountain. That clinched the decision.
“You make a decision for the wrong reason but God uses that for good,” he said.
He attended Central his senior year, lived with the kind Bixler family, and he adds with a laugh that he never dated the girl he saw at the water fountain. He shares many stories from his year at Central. Most of all, he remembers how the students welcomed him.
“I felt like I was there my whole life,” he said.
Mitchell is active in the community volunteering at Common Threads Closet and other places and when he saw that Central was having a Community Service Day he contacted the school about students volunteering at Common Threads.
Cindy Bach, director at Common Threads, said the students couldn’t have come at a better time. Students helped sort items and they also helped prep food for the next day’s fundraiser during the Barberton Mum Festival.
“Ths is huge for us,” Bach said.
Bach said Common Threads Closet began 12 years ago to meet a need and the need is growing.
She said 96 families came through to pick up toiletries the evening before. She said there is a great need for donations of toiletries because they are expensive and SNAP benefits don’t cover them. She said at least 120 families went through the clothing area.
“Our numbers are more and more each week,” she said.
Last month, they gave away 7,700 clothing items.
Common Threads is fortunate to have many volunteers and also school groups that regularly help. The CCS group helped them to get ahead at the end of a busy month and prepare for the weekend. Bach said she would welcome a group from CCS every year. Students did everything from sorting coats and pants and refilling the empty racks to rolling meatballs for the fundraiser.
Volunteers are welcome to show up during the store hours and donation drop off which is 4-7 p.m. Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays unless it’s a holiday. There are a variety of ways to help.
At the end of last month, Bach said what they are in need of in particular includes children’s clothing, men’s shoes and toiletry items such as razors, shaving cream, dental floss, deodorant and denture tabs.
“We do rely on the community for a lot of those items,” Bach said.
Common Threads offers clothing and household items for families. How it works is families can pick up to 30 items per month for each member of the family, plus household items for $6 per year for the entire family, which is not due at the first visit. Choice Food Pantry is 4-6 p.m. the first, second and third Thursdays of the month. Toiletries available the fourth Thursday. Dinner is Wednesday 5:30-6:30 p.m. Saturday’s hot lunch is served 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Free health clinic on the first and third Thursdays.
Follow Common Threads Closet in Barberton on Facebook and for more information, email [email protected].
CSD is not only about serving the community, according to the Central Christian news release, it is also about making Central Christian School accessible to future students. Each year, students invite alumni, family, and friends to support CCS financially by giving to the Fair Balance Fund. This ensures every Central family pays tuition according to their income and financial situation. No Central student pays the true cost of their education — the generosity of sponsors help make a Christ-centered education accessible for all.
“Seeing our students put their faith into action while simultaneously contributing to the Fair Balance Fund shows the depth of their commitment,” Nate Holton, Superintendent of CCS, said in the news release. “CSD is an annual investment in our community and in the future of every Central Christian student, regardless of their family’s financial situation.”
CCS extends heartfelt thanks to the nonprofit partners who welcomed students, the families who supported their efforts, and the donors whose generosity continues to make Christ-centered education possible, the news release states. Donations in support of Community Service Day are still being accepted through the end of the year at www.ccscomets.org.
