GAMBIER – On the eve of this year’s Food for the Hungry drive, generosity ran high at the 8th annual Snowflake Gala, hosted by Kenyon College.

Leaders from nearly every major community institution mingled, dined and celebrated the act of giving at the Kenyon Athletics Center. The gala featured an award ceremony, a speaker and an auction, from which all proceeds went towards Food for the Hungry.

Of the hundreds in attendance, however, one family shone the brightest.

The Brenneman family, which founded Brenneman Lumber Company (and relocated to Mount Vernon in 1989), was given the 2018 William A. Stroud Jr. Award for Community Service on Friday night. The award serves as one of Knox County’s highest philanthropy-based honors, signifying years of service and community involvement.

The Brennemans have been involved in a long list of organizations since moving to Mount Vernon, including 4-H, the Knox County Chamber of Commerce, the Community Foundation of Mount Vernon and Knox County, and the Masons, to name a few. They have also made regular donations to an even longer list of local non-profit organizations, helping them continue to serve vital roles in the community.

Doug Brenneman Sr., the eldest Brenneman, accepted the award and offered a few words from the podium.

“Basically, we like to do as much charity as we possibly can,” he said. “We don’t need any thanks for doing it. It’s just what we feel in our heart.”

Matt Starr, producer for Kokosing River Productions, crafted an eight-minute video where friends of the Brenneman family spoke of their generosity. He said afterwards that his first draft of the video was 30 minutes long, as he interviewed 15 people in multiple locations, and many had memorable stories to share about the family.

Given the scope of the family’s impact, Starr said it was difficult to trim the video down. At the end, it took five consecutive slides to fit in all the non-profits that the family had donated to over the years.

“This is a great family and I’m really happy to do it,” Starr said. “They’re just amazing people, so a little bit of extra work is nothing in the long run.”

A theme that rose from the video was ‘passing the torch’ – that the idea of giving has been passed down from generation to generation in the Brenneman family, which has caused their influence in the community to grow over time.

Food for the Hungry President Samantha Scoles noted that this idea coincides with her organization’s mission, which involves teaching the community’s youth about the power of giving back. This is exhibited through the elementary school collection days, where students are asked to bring in canned or boxed food to feed the community’s needy.

“We’re trying to do that too with our school drives, to start them young and get them to understand the importance of giving, so that they’re going to project that onto their family as they get older,” Scoles said. “It’s really the whole multi-generational thing (that) makes Food for the Hungry really work.”

According to the Brenneman Lumber Company’s website, the family business is now in its fourth and fifth generations, with Charlie and Doug Jr. (sons of Doug Sr.) managing the company. The company was founded in 1932 by A.R. Brennaman in Ashtabula, OH, and has remained family-owned ever since.

Brenneman Lumber Company sells Appalachian hardwood lumber, according to its website, as it ships both green and kiln-dried lumber from its Parrott Street facility.

But the reason Doug Brenneman Sr. stood alongside his family – 14 members strong – near the podium on Friday night wasn’t necessarily because of their success in the lumber industry. It was about their history of doing more than what’s expected of them, and lifting the community up in the process.

Standing at the podium in front of a sea of hushed spectators, Brenneman was mostly at a loss for words. He had a hard time explaining why his family did what it did, and why it currently does what it does. Then he found it.

“Like Hank Williams said,” Brenneman quipped, “it’s a family tradition.”