Community center receives building as gift

When Jacquie Price’s cousin, Wayne Lesher and his wife Amy of Pennsylvania, visited The Community Center of Southern Tuscarawas County in Port Washington earlier this year, they made a surprise announcement.

Price had asked her cousin to help purchase the former Moravian Church in the village in 2021 so a community center could be started. The couple held the mortgage, and The Center was slowly paying it back with fundraisers and donations, while focusing on providing activities that benefited the community.

A social gathering was quickly put together for the visit.

“He said, he and his wife had talked about it, and they decided to forgive the rest of the mortgage,” Price said. “They just gifted us the building with zero mortgage.”

The Leshers, who were following the center online, were impressed with the activities being offered to bring the community together and their focus on healthy living.

It’s something that was achieved by listening to what the needs were in the community.

"I'm really loving the focus on healthy living. I think of it as mind, body and soul. We're really just tending to people here,” Price said.

That was how the farmers market at the center began.

“There's a real interest in sustainable living and getting a lot of the toxins and chemicals out of our food and homes,” Price said.

Home gardening can be a real help for those wanting better food for their families.

"I encourage everyone to plant a garden this year, even if you're just using a pot on your porch. Grow something,” Price said.

The center will host a plant sale May 9.

“A lot of our vendors are going to have all of the vegetables and herbs that you need to plant your garden,” Price said.

The plant sale will also feature baskets for Mother’s Day and many of the regular farmers market vendors will participate. Also available will be homemade and handmade items.

Breakfast will be served in the center May 9 beginning at 8 a.m. until sold out. The plant sale will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The summer farmers market opens June 4. The day and time of the market has changed to Thursdays from 6-8 p.m.

“We have a lot of fun things going on. We're going to have a kid’s area at every farmers market this year with activities for them including bounce houses and we're going to do the dunk tank again,” Price said.

Another popular activity will be ending soon but will be back again for the colder months.

“I think we started that, like end of January, and it started out as what we called a soup social,” Dale Burk, a member of the center’s board, said. “But again, we have an overzealous bunch of volunteers, and it's literally turned into a four-course dinner."

Burk collected the donations to get the soup social started. It is free, but so many people wanted to donate that the dinner is paying for itself. About 30-40 people attend the dinner each week. That number does not include the meals they pack up and deliver to individuals in town.

The center is pleased to offer family friendly activities.

“I think another strength of this facility down here is the fact that we are basically making it family oriented most of the time,” Burk said. “When you come into this building, you're not going to have to worry about what you might be exposed to."

The center does lease to a church, which provides services Sunday and holds addiction recovery sessions Monday nights. It does not run the church.

Other activities held at the center include an annual fishing expo, youth groups, a new free art class for youth, health screenings, exercise classes, home making skill classes including crafts, sewing, bread making, canning and more.

The center is now looking for a new volunteer director. While she is still very involved, Price resigned earlier this year. In addition to the board, they have volunteers in place that chair certain activities which will make the job a little easier. More information is available on their Facebook page.

“We're more than just wanting people to come here. We want this to be a place that can also reach out to the people in this community fulfilling a lot of roles,” Burk said. “The center is going to support the people that live in this area."