The third annual Wheeling Gaunt Community Service Award presentation event, sponsored by the Wheeling Gaunt Sculpture Project Committee and the YS Arts Council, was held virtually on Tuesday, Feb. 23. This year’s award was presented to the Yellow Springs Community Foundation. Previous honorees were The 365 Project in 2020 and Mikasa Simms’ first grade class at Mills Lawn in 2019.
“We decided to acknowledge the Yellow Springs Community Foundation because their support for our community, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been pitch perfect to the type of legacy that Wheeling Gaunt left for our town,” said Sculpture Project Manager Cheryl Durgans.
In the days immediately following Ohio’s stay-at-home order, the Community Foundation leaped into action, forming groups to address food insecurity, collecting and distributing masks which were difficult to find early in the pandemic to essential workers, and, with the YS Credit Union, establishing a fund to distribu
Yellow Springs kicked off the beginning of 2020, as always, with the traditional ball drop overseen by Lance Rudegeair; MTFR personnel handed out hot cocoa, and at least one marriage proposal greeted the new year.
The Reach Out Free Clinic, which was held each Tuesday evening at Central Chapel AME Church, celebrated a year of operation in early January. The free, donation-based clinic, a satellite location of Reach Out Dayton, closed due to the pandemic in March; the Dayton location shuttered permanently later in the year.
Nan Harshaw, longtime chair of the MLK Day Planning Committee, was awarded the annual Peacemaker Award at the 2020 Martin Luther King Day celebration. The late Willa Dallas was also recognized for her civil rights efforts and her role in initiating the annual local event.