Share-A-Christmas community night brings county together to give

For the committee members of Holmes County Share-A-Christmas, serving the community is a driving force behind why they do what they do for SAC.

One of the most fulfilling evenings for many of them is seeing the community come together to help provide for area families during the Christmas season at the community night, which this year took place Monday, Dec. 8 at the Baker Building at Harvest Ridge.

On that evening people from the community were invited to drop off presents and help organize the presents in the squared-off sections of the Baker Building, which was designed specifically with Share-A-Christmas in mind.

This year the community coming together for SAC meant serving 235 area families along with more than 100 senior citizens.

“This has always been and will always be about serving families within our county,” said Nikki Roach, who along with Mindi Campbell has taken on the chairing of this program.

The donation of toys comes from all over the county and beyond. The Stillwell Stompers, the Jeep group from that area, brought in a huge load of toys. Pomerene Hospital has a toy drive annually. Area businesses donated many toys, and area families turned out in droves to help support the effort. There are giving trees at German Village, Jitters Café and Walmart.

Through donations, Kristen and Joel Troyer, owners of The Village Toy Shop, order age-appropriate toys, with students from West Holmes High School volunteering to place each family’s detailed list of toys into large bags.

“Our community is something special,” Roach said. “Year after year our community steps up and delivers in giving and helping where they can. This place was a beehive of activity tonight, and it was amazing how quickly we got through the organization of everything.”

All the toys and food collected from area schools and churches and other nonperishable items were gathered, with people from around the county also bringing in donations on community night. Many area businesses also collected food for the drive.

Together with leaders from within the SAC leadership team, everyone kept the SAC train rolling along.

"Community night is seeing everyone coming together from throughout the community and helping to organize and close all the boxes in their respective squares within the Baker Building,” Roach said.

The squares are dedicated areas lined off in grid-style in the Baker Building, something that was in place when the building was donated and built specifically with SAC in mind. To get to where the community could come in to help, SAC got a helping hand from several area Boy Scout troops.

A group of employees from Fire Ridge Golf Course helped bag cereal that was collected by Phil Yoder and Scott Rodhe of Rodhe’s IGA Marketplace.

The prior Sunday church day took place and saw area churches delivering all the goods each had collected over several weeks, with each church collecting one single product such as detergent, paper towels and other items.

“The churches collected close to 11,000 items in all,” Roach said.

While they scheduled several hours for the evening to be completed because of the sheer volume of people eager to help, the evening was over almost before it began.

Roach said it is simply people expressing a desire to give back to others, people who feel they have been blessed and want to share that blessing with others.

“This shows the true heart of people,” Campbell said. “People want to give and serve. That’s this community, and that is the heart of Share-A-Christmas. It was incredible to see how quickly everything came together this evening.”

Much like the rest of Holmes County SAC’s operation, community night takes a great deal of planning, passion and hard work, but when everyone unites as one, it is a bounty of blessings for not only those who receive, but also for those who give.