Sinclair Community College’s Englewood, Huber Heights and Preble County Learning Centers worked in conjunction with the downtown admissions office to feed the homeless at the Gettysburg Gateway for Men shelter on Saturday, Oct. 23.
Twenty-seven people from Sinclair, including students, staff, faculty and alumni fed over 250 people at the Make a Difference Day event, according to the manager of the Englewood and Huber Heights Learning Centers, Dawayne Kirkman.
Kirkman worked with the manager of the Preble County Learning Center, Janet Schmitt, and the Director of Admissions Dani Stoll to organize the event.
“The idea was to be able to teach our students to have a spirit of servitude,” Kirkman said.
The 27 people who volunteered were responsible for bringing food, preparing it, cooking it, serving it and then cleaning everything up.
Evan Kloth, the generalist at the Huber Heights Learning Center, brought two gas grills with him that were used to cook hamburgers and hotdogs, and Kloth estimated they would cook over 300 combined.
“I think this was an awesome place to do something like this,” Kloth said. “Every year we do something nice and really it’s my favorite thing we do all year round. It’s not even really at Sinclair but I’ve always really enjoyed this more hands-on stuff.”
Kirkman said that the event wasn’t about the food, but rather putting a face on Sinclair for those who may not be familiar with what the college offers.
“This is community outreach,” Kirkman said. “Build relationships. Sinclair can be the key to changing your life.”
Along with hamburgers, hotdogs, bags of chips and cases of pop of all kinds, Dottie Bailey, a DEV reading instructor, brought with her over 300 t-shirts.
“Not just feeding their stomachs, feeding their hearts,” Schmitt said. “As educators, we need to work outside our four walls to truly educate the community.”
This was the fifth Make a Difference Day, and Kirkman said he felt this was the most “important” of the five. Previous Make a Difference Days have, for example, featured cleaning up vines at a local park.
Kathy Rowell, the director for the Center for Teaching and Learning, advocated for the Gettysburg Gateway for Men shelter to be the location for the Make a Difference Day, according to Kirkman.
“Dawayne and I talked about doing a group project,” Rowell said. “I told him that they don’t have enough people out here to feed [those in the shelter], and nobody wants to come out here and cook a whole meal. So we decided it would be a good idea.”
Rowell works with different homeless shelters and has for many years, she said.
“You know you look at Make a Difference Day projects and sometimes people do things, small projects and make a difference that one day. [The people at the shelter] wouldn’t have had dinner tonight if we hadn’t come out here. They never get a grilled hamburger or hotdogs, they never have pop. We’re going to be pretty popular.”