MOUNT VERNON – It’s just after 2 p.m. on a gloriously warm fall afternoon, the sun filling GOAL Digital Academy’s Mount Vernon lab, and one of Knox County’s most giving souls had tears in her eyes.
The word she kept using was “blessing.”
She was describing, of course, the act of giving. This is something Ginny Williams has dedicated her life to, particularly since 2003, when she founded Knox County’s chapter of the Byron Saunders Foundation.
The chapter, made up of six board members and a bevy of volunteers, provides hundreds of county residents with pre-packaged Thanksgiving dinners each fall. Those who receive the meals have been recommended to the foundation anonymously by friends, neighbors or fellow community members who believed they could use a helping hand during the holiday season.
The names on the registry, which resets every year and is kept privately by Williams, are not confined by income status – there are often families recommended who have recently been through death, divorce, medical trauma or other hardships. Many times, Williams said, those who receive meals do not qualify for government assistance, but they also can’t afford to assemble a complete Thanksgiving meal for their family.
That’s where BSF steps in.
“I’ve delivered to people who have had a death in their family and they’re just not thinking about Thanksgiving,” said Williams, who looks back on family Thanksgiving meals as some of her fondest childhood memories.
“You know, it’s one of those wonderful things. But that’s being lost today, it’s being lost. And I’d like to think that by putting this meal together, a family might have 10, 15 minutes together, and maybe those memories will come back.”
On Thursday, chapter volunteers and board members assembled boxes full of Thanksgiving meal essentials for this year’s recipients. The boxes contained canned corn, green beans and fruit, as well as stuffing, potatoes, yams, and a $15 certificate for meat to be used at Baker’s IGA in Mount Vernon.
Some of the food is donated, as several area food drives give Thanksgiving items, such as canned beans or corn, to the chapter each year. Some food is also paid for through BSF fundraisers and volunteer work, as the organization stamps hands at the Knox County Fair, hosts chili cook-offs and receives a yearly Food For The Hungry grant to help foot the bill.
Volunteers buy the food at various local grocery stores, everywhere from Lanning’s to Aldi.
Each person who is registered on the list receives a card in the mail from the foundation (Williams confirms the name, phone number and address of each recipient before officially adding them to the list to ensure legitimacy).
The card describes the Byron Saunders Foundation and tells them that “someone anonymously gave us your name and we are happy to provide this meal for your family.” It tells recipients when and where they will be able to pick up their meal. This year, it was last Friday and Saturday at GOAL Digital Academy’s Mount Vernon lab, located near the fairgrounds.
Each family is assigned a number, ensuring another level of anonymity when submitting their card on pick-up day. Those who can’t make it to one of the pick-up dates can have their meal delivered to their house.
If a family claims they don’t need the meal, Williams tells them to either save it for Christmas or give it to someone who does. In this way, she believes the foundation has helped foster an attitude of giving in Knox County.
“There’s people out there who can’t scrape two bucks together, let alone put a Thanksgiving meal on the table, you know?” Williams said. “And some people say, ‘Find somebody else because I’ve already got Thanksgiving.’ I go, ‘Hey, go get it. Use it for Christmas.’”
When Williams started the chapter in 2003, she and a friend used to deliver every meal, doorstep-to-doorstep. They would do it after work hours but before 9 p.m., using flashlights to locate house addresses. They were once confronted by the police after being called out by a suspicious neighbor.
But back then, only 20 names were on the chapter’s list. As the list grew larger over the years, Williams decided it would be best for her – and her volunteers – to assemble and distribute the majority of the meals in one location.
This year, 242 meal boxes were distributed.
Williams said Knox County’s BSF chapter has grown mostly by word-of-mouth. By nature, the organization does not extensively publicize itself.
“It was always a grassroots movement to begin with, it was never to be just like Food For the Hungry or the United Way or any of these large entities,” Williams said. “It’s supposed to be neighbor-to-neighbor, that type of a thing.”
Over the years, local law enforcement has also played a bigger role in the organization’s efforts. The Mount Vernon Police Department, Knox County Sheriff’s Office, Danville Police Department, Fredericktown Police Department and Mount Vernon Municipal Court Probation Department all help run the Saturday pick-up session and deliver meal boxes.
“I don’t believe I can think of one law enforcement organization that isn’t represented in this,” said Dave Priest, chief probation officer for Mount Vernon Municipal Court Probation Department.
Priest became involved three years ago after talking with Laura Webster, Knox County 911 Operations Director, about how the court’s adult probation department could become more involved in community service. Now, all five of Priest’s probation officers and the rest of his administrative staff volunteer on pick-up day.
“I think that sometimes we forget in this business, in the judicial sector, that we really don’t work with a lot of bad people, we work with some people who made some bad decisions,” Priest said. “We’re in the social service field and it’s an opportunity to continue doing what we do, a way of giving back to our community on a more personal level.
“It reminds you of the importance of humanity and hope.”
Williams, 64, moved to Knox County from Michigan in 1986. Her interest in community service began at a young age, when she participated in the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, a Masonic youth service organization. In addition to her duties at BSF, she’s now also the Ohio/West Virginia district president of Exchange Club, a national service organization.
She got the idea to start Knox County’s BSF chapter 15 years ago after meeting Brian Wollenberg, who had just began the Byron Saunders Foundation in Canal Winchester. Wollenberg had been assembling Thanksgiving meal baskets with the help of friends, family and co-workers since the age of 23, delivering them to families in need.
In 1999, one of Wollenberg’s young volunteers, Byron Saunders, died tragically in an automobile accident. According to Williams, Saunders had spent countless hours delivering Thanksgiving food to people in “neighborhoods that we wouldn’t go through in daytime,” and he did it with “no strings attached.”
In 2002, when Wollenberg’s organization earned official non-profit status, he named it after his friend.
In the early days of Williams starting her own chapter, Wollenberg would often supply the chapter with food and it would be Williams’ job to find the families. Soon, as Williams began to build relationships with well-connected members of Knox County’s various communities, her list began to grow.
To this day, there are only two BSF chapters – one in Franklin County, which Wollenberg runs, and Williams’ program in Knox County. While Williams said Wollenberg wants to eventually have chapters in all 88 Ohio counties, she thinks it’s unlikely to happen because of the effort and community involvement it takes to make it work.
Ultimately, it takes people like Williams, who care so much about the cause that they spring to life when talking about the feeling of dropping off a meal basket.
Speaking softly last Thursday, Williams vividly recalled doorstep deliveries that changed lives. There was the time she delivered to a family that was living above a garage and had a child in school. Or the time she delivered to a family that was trying to pick up the pieces after the father had fallen off a roof and was unsure if he was going to walk again.
One time, Williams and her daughter pulled up to a house that appeared to be a mansion. They were unsure if they had the right address, given the bravado of the estate.
When they knocked on the door, a woman answered and they handed her a meal basket. She immediately broke down in tears.
“How did you know?” she asked Williams.
“I’m just the delivery person…” Williams responded.
“My husband’s got brain cancer. I had no clue what I was going to do for the family,” the woman said back.
This is what brings Williams to tears today, the memories that will impact not only her, but also the meal recipients, forever.
As volunteers continue to carefully place bean cans and stuffing packages into each cardboard box, Williams pulls out a stack of envelopes tied together by a rubber band. The envelopes contain letters, all handwritten, from people who have received meals over the years.
Some are short, some are long. Some are printed in neat cursive, some are scribbled passionately. All are written with love.
“It’s those kind of families I want to reach,” Williams said. “Can you see it? It’s a blessing.”
While Williams doesn’t hand-deliver as many meal baskets now, due to the fact that most are picked up during distribution days, she still cherishes the personal moments she gets with meal recipients. She cherishes every time she’s able to stand on a porch and say to a family, “This meal’s been provided by someone who gave us your name. They felt that you needed a little help for this holiday.”
To feel the pain leaving and the strength returning to those in the doorway, those who may have fallen on hard times but are now being picked back up by their friends, neighbors or compassionate community members – that, she says, is the blessing.
“You deliver that and you’re actually touching their lives,” said Williams, who had wiped away her tears and now spoke passionately on Thursday afternoon, just one day before her chapter’s efforts would change lives once again.
“You’re on their house step, it’s a whole different story. And that’s what keeps me going.”
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