Pay It Forward Cafe Celebrates Its First Anniversary
I need to begin this article with a correction from December's article entitled “Community Helping Community”. I submitted the article; Kathy Weber, the creator of this program, wrote it. Our Pay It Forward Café at Parma Park Reformed Church aka “Church in the Woods” has been in existence now for a year. Last December 6 we met for the first time to have a pizza dinner and make special Christmas greeting cards and letters to send to a troop of soldiers in Iraq which we had just adopted through the armed forces AdoptaPlatoon program. We also collected candy donated by b. a. Sweetie Candy Co., snack items donated by various individuals and businesses, water bottles donated by an individual, and snacks purchased with gift cards from local businesses. We partnered with the Renwood Elementary School and included them in the sign-up for this special event. One child from the Renwood School whose uncle was in Iraq insisted that he and his family send something to these soldiers, so he gave some snacks to be included in a box. We ended up sending 4 boxes of Christmas cards, items and goodies to our platoon of 54 soldiers that day.
For our first event we also invited the mayors of Parma and Parma Heights, our school principal, Mary Wise from the Parma Collaborative, a Kiwanis member who was also a Veteran to open our celebration by leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance, and other prominent community and school personnel. We then began our weekly program of “Feed the Kids at the Pay It Forward Café” in January 2009. The first two weeks we were snowed out and iced out so nobody came and we ended up freezing the donated pizzas for future meals. It has progressed steadily throughout the year and we now number approximately 40-50 total per meal. We presently have over 50 children enrolled from about 25 families and several adults who are volunteering their help, outside of our own church body.Our programs over the year of 2009 have included 5 magicians (which the kids really love!!), a children’s author who is also a dog rescuer and writes books about her dogs, especially one close to her heart who has only 3 legs, a skunk rescuer who brought 2 pet skunks with her, our fire and police safety programs, Ohio State University Nutritionists with separate program series for both adults and children, Families on Fire speaker on preventing suicide in our families, and others. We vary our programs to include entertainment, educational programs, writing letters and making cards and donations for our Platoon in Iraq, and having crafts, games, and Bingo days. We have also begun a “Clothing Exchange” for our families, which is open when we have a fifth Saturday in the month. We have learned a lot about what the Cleveland Foodbank is all about and how invaluable they are to our city. As we have become an agency with them they have provided us with learning classes which provide grant money for our purchases, they provide greatly reduced purchases of all kinds, a Marketplace for free perishable foods, and lots of learning experiences to enhance our program and things to pass on to our families.We tried 2 fundraisers this past year: a Taste of Faith Community Potluck and a Motorcycle Rally.
We learned a lot from each of these events, including how extra community events and the weather can adversely affect our efforts. We look forward to more fundraising helpers and experiences this coming year. As we begin our second year we look forward to learning more and more about ministering to our community and connecting with those who need help and those who can give help. We are always looking for talent and ideas for programs and workshops. To learn more contact Kathy Weber @ 440-781-2588 or Laura Muller @ 440-477-0845. To donate, make a deposit into the “Feed the Kids”/ Parma Park Reformed Church account at Chase Bank, Parmatown Mall.