Global good: Winchester couple bring mission experiences to local needs

WINCHESTER, Ill. — Marsha and Kenny Mayner of Winchester have traveled the world helping others. Marsha has been on mission trips to Africa, and Kenny has done mission work in the Dominican Republic. So, when they saw the same kinds of needs in their local area that they saw abroad, they took action.

“Every time we came back home, no matter if it was from trips in the U.S. or outside the U.S., we could see that the need was just as great right here in our own communities,” Marsha said.

They bought and renovated a building in downtown Winchester and the Outreach Community Center was born 10 years ago.

“When we started, we had no idea how we were going to make this work or what we were going to do but we knew it needed to be done,” Marsha said.

In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic — and because of the pandemic and the additional needs it created for families in the area — the Mayners, their 10-member board of directors and volunteers have kept up their work through 2020.

“The pandemic has shook us up a little bit, but we are plugging along as best we can,” Marsha said.

The Outreach Community Center started as a food pantry. It has expanded to be an emergency needs center for victims of fires, natural disasters, domestic violence or whatever emergency arises.

They also offer various programs, like a back-to-school backpack program that provides backpacks filled with school supplies for children, a hot meal program for shut-ins, a Christmas giveaway, an emergency food program and a monthly food pantry. All of those projects have continued during the pandemic.

“The need definitely picked up after March. In all of 2019, we probably served around 2,000 individuals as far as our food giveaways go. This year, just since March, we’ve served around 3,000 people with those same giveaways,” Marsha said.

The people who use the program’s services could be anyone, Kenny said.

“It’s just regular people. We have a lot of seniors. It’s people from all walks of life. It’s working class people who are just really struggling to keep their families fed,” Kenny said.

The Mayners receive the food they distribute from a variety of sources.

“When we first started out, we had to purchase food retail wherever we could. Since that time, we’ve become a member of the Central Illinois Food Bank, so we get a lot of our food there,” Marsha said.

One blessing from the pandemic came in the form of a food giveaway by Dot Foods, headquartered in Mount Sterling.

The warehouses of the largest food redistributor in the United States were filled with food items that would have been sent to restaurants, hotels, conference venues and other customers. When the pandemic struck and those customers closed, Dot Foods donated over $2.5 million worth of food in its warehouses to food pantries, food banks, schools and other feeding programs across the United States.

Locally, Dot Foods donated food to agencies in Brown County and surrounding counties.

“Kenny got 19 loads of food from them, and it was all free. They didn’t charge us anything,” Marsha said.

The donation was appreciated and put to good and immediate use.

“At the end of every month, we have our monthly food giveaway that we call Bags of Blessings. When March came and we had all of these donations, we had one once a week. We called them Pop Up Giveaways. Some of the items we had were perishable so we couldn’t keep them until the end of the month, so we did Pop Up Giveaways. That’s something we’ve never done before, and they were very well attended,” Marsha said.

Another program that was temporarily halted was meals for shut-ins.

The Mayners and their volunteers, on the third Saturday of every month, provide a hot meal and a sack supper and deliver those meals to the homes of people who are homebound. They finished the March deliveries, but halted the program for April, May and June.

“By the time July came, we said we were going to do it again and they were very glad to see us again,” Marsha said.

Normally the center has what Marsha calls a “wealth” of volunteers who help out with the various programs. That is another area where they have had to make changes.

“We have not been able to use the same number of volunteers that we normally would. We have five or six who have worked these last few months and make sure they were there to help us get things done. At a normal food giveaway, we would have 20 to 25 volunteers. Now it’s about five or six of us,” she said.

It’s been difficult to explain to dedicated volunteers why they can’t help, she said, but everything is being done to keep the volunteers, the people they are serving and the Mayners themselves save and able to keep helping.

“We have to be so sure that we know where the people who are helping us have been and who they have been in contact with. If someone comes in here and then they call and say ‘I’ve got COVID-19,’ it would shut the place down. We can’t take the risk of shutting the place down. Too many people depend on us,” she said.

Right now, the Mayners are resting up and planning for their Christmas giveaway. Marsha works part-time at Illinois College in Jacksonville, and Kenny is retired.

Normally, the Christmas giveaway has families come and choose from a variety of items. Children get an item of clothing or a set of pajamas, a new toothbrush and hygiene kit and toys.

This year, families are being asked to pre-register, and the Mayners will package the items and each family will pick up their package at a designated time, instead of the usual shopping-style event.

“We just can’t allow that many people into the center at the same time this year,” Marsha said.

The Mayners also want to ensure that they are passing along their sense of service and giving to the next generation.

For the last five years, they have sponsored three $500 scholarships to graduating seniors who have demonstrated outstanding community service throughout their high school years. Two of the scholarships go to students from Winchester High School, and one scholarship goes to Bluffs High School.

“We don’t base it on grades. We don’t base it on sports or anything of that nature. We base it solely on the community service they have displayed all the way through their school years,” Marsha said.

The money for the scholarships is raised solely through a trivia night fundraiser. This year, while the trivia night was not able to be conducted, there was enough money in the account to still present the scholarships.

A decade later, the Mayners’ faith remains strong and the center founded on that faith and sense of giving has grown beyond their expectations. The Mayners say they are blessed and plan to continue passing those blessings along.

“When we first started, we had $200 in the bank. I thought, that’s not enough to keep the lights on until next month. But with God’s grace and being faithful, we have. We’ve tried to be good shepherds of what He has given, good stewards, and He has blessed us time and time and time again. Ten years later, it’s gotten about 10 times bigger than we ever thought. He has always provided food and money when we needed it. He has blessed us because we have stuck to trying to be good stewards of what He has given us,” Kenny said.