Dayton Christian Center has entered a new era this week.
It was at a staff meeting then that Board of Directors Chairman Carl Marquette announced that Interim Executive Director Tasha Johnson had been hired to fill the position permanently.Tasha succeeds former Executive Director Bob Bishop who left DXC in November.Tasha took the interim position at that time.
Tasha is a 2006 graduate of Wright State University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Organizational Leadership Johnson has been an Early Childhood professional for more than 10 years. Shortly after giving birth to her first child she continued her life long love of learning in pursuit of her Associates of Science Degree in Early Childhood Education. Prior to working with children Johnson was a French linguist in the Army stationed in Germany.Before returning to the United States Tasha completed her AS in ECE with the College of Southern Maryland. Upon being stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and settling in a house in Huber Heights, Ohio, Tasha began to work in the Preschool field.
It was while she was stationed in Germany that Tasha met her husband, Brian.They have three children together, Christina, Kendra and Carissa.
During her tenure at DXC, Tasha has taken part in a Lights On Afterschool event in collaboration with many other service providers in the Montgomery County area. The event was attended by over 600 children, parents and after school professionals.She also initiated the Center’s participation in the Step Up To Quality program, Ohio's voluntary quality rating system for ODJFS licensed child care programs.The Center currently rated at one star and Tasha hopes to gain a second one this year.
The Board decided at the April 28 meeting of the Board to hire Tasha but it was not announced immediately to allow time to get the staff together for an official proclamation.The event was celebrated on Monday, May 11 with cake and ice cream for everyone who attended.
We wish Tasha the best of luck and look forward to seeing what she has in store for DXC in the future.
Father, We Thank Thee For flowers that bloom about our feet, Father, we thank Thee, For the tender grass so fresh and sweet, Father, we thank Thee, For the song of bird and hum of bee, For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank thee, For blue of stream and blue of sky, Father, we thank Thee, For pleasant shade of branches high, Father, we thank Thee, For fragrant air and cooling breeze, For the beauty of the blooming trees, Father in heaven, we thank Thee. For this new morning with its light, Father, we thank Thee, For rest and shelter of the night, Father, we thank Thee, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends, Father in heaven, we thank Thee. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
First, it was Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) on Friday and we had 18 very dedicated and enthusiastic students from Spring Valley Academy choose to spend their morning with us cleaning up the neighborhood and interacting with the residents, showing that today’s youth is interested in more than texting, tweeting and video games.
These young people we’re afraid to get their hands dirty. While part of them worked their way the full length of Ferguson Ave – about half a mile in length – picking up trash and even carrying large items from one end of the street to the other so they could be picked up by the city, another group helped out here at DXC, cleaning up the grounds so that we could look our best, too. Then, the full group traveled down Riverview Ave, where we’re located, ranging at least as far as they had on Ferguson. At one point, a resident came out onto his porch and stood applauding the students as they passed by his house, gathering trash. They exchanged greetings and the man thanked them for doing such a good job and everyone parted feeling a little better about what they were doing. By the time they were finished, not a single scrap of paper, not a discarded bottle or can, not a forgotten toy was left. They even found some – shall we say – very personal items which they carefully picked up and deposited in the proper receptacles.
That’s dedication!
There was a great moment at the beginning of the day when Global Youth Service Day Committee Member Cathy Guerrant, from nearby Catholic Social Services, and Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley stopped by for a visit. Both Ms. Guerrant and Commissioner Whaley have been great advocates of youth volunteer programs and have done a lot to encourage and support both programs and the local organizations, such as DXC, who host them.
Along with DXC Associate Executive Director Sarah Williams, Commissioner Whaley and Ms. Guerrant welcomed the students and thanked them for their work. This meant a lot to the young people, and meant even more when all three adults accompanied them outside to give them even more encouragement.
All this, by the way, was captured by local news media WDTN, Channel 2, who sent reporter Jordan Burgess out to get it on film and interview some of the students.
It was really special to see not only that young people would spend their morning doing work that many older, supposedly more responsible people tend to ignore. Maybe it’s the youth of our country that can set the example for us!
We really want to thank them, Spring Valley Academy, Ms. Guerrant and Commissioner Whaley, and WDTN for their support on GYSD. Because of it, our neighborhood is a better, cleaner and more prideful area.
But the good things didn’t stop there. On Saturday, Sarah and Phil Greene, our AmeriCorps Program Manager were partnered with the Dayton/Montgomery County Public Health department at the Levin Health Fair, “Celebrating Health and Life.” This annual event, put on by the Levin Family Foundation, is one of the biggest, most important health-oriented events anywhere in this part of Ohio. It draws literally thousands of people and hundreds of health-related vendors from all over the Dayton area.
Sarah and Phil had the DXC display set up along with Public Health in a very high-traffic area. In fact, neither of them had much chance to catch their breath over the five hours of the event as people stopped by to pick up information and listen to Sarah and Phil talk about the 5-2-1-NA program.
That’s part of the GetUP Montgomery County program run by the Health Department – the reason we were partnered for the event.
That program seeks to address the epidemic of childhood obesity but changing our lifestyles and those of our kids. It advocates a daily regime of five servings of fruits and vegetables, having less than two hours “screen time” (video games, computers, television or cell phone), getting at least one hour of physical activity and having no or almost no sugary drinks, especially carbonated sugary drinks.
Here at DXC, though, we’ve taken it a bit farther. We’re also involved in teaching people how to take more control over their diet by growing their own food in backyard gardens or even containers. To that end, we’ve formed some pretty interesting partnership that we’ll be talking about later.
While at the Health Fair, Sarah and Phil also promoted DXC’s “In God’s Hands” child care facility and, was there ever a lot of interest!
“In God’s Hands” is a Title 20 child care program and, especially with the economic climate in Dayton right now, it is sorely needed. Sarah and Phil handed out so many pamphlets and brochures that they ran out, so we’re expecting to grow quite a bit over the next few weeks. We’ll keep you posted there too.
Finally, to close out the big week with a bit of fun, we hosted a community Easter Egg Hunt. AmeriCorps Member Cardella Scroggins put this event together as a way to give a bit to the community and let some kids discover the joy of the Easter season. From what we hear, nearly 100 people showed up and there was fun, laughter, and the thrill of discovered goodies had by all.
This is the first hunt we’ve had here at DXC but it more than likely won’t be the last.
Once again this year, we’ll team up with the United Way’s Volunteer Connection Center to host a group of young volunteers on Global Youth Service Day (GYSD).This year’s project will be on Friday, April 15 and will be the fifth year we’ve done it.We’ve never been prouder or happier to be part of it.
This year’s project will be the same as last years, since it was a big success.We’ll be walking through the neighborhood picking up trash and small pieces of junk and generally cleaning up.We’re proud to be here in West Dayton and we’d like to show that pride while giving our young people the opportunity to how important and how satisfying community service really is.
Since our mission statement is “Enriching and Empowering Lives, One Choice at a Time,” we feel it’s important to take pride in the neighborhood.After all, civic pride is the foundation of a more livable, safer, and happier community life, and we want to do our part to create that environment.
But just as importantly, the young people who come to spend their day with us on GYSD not only learn about service and volunteering, they also give us the motivation and inspiration to step up our efforts.We’ve worked quite a lot with young people this year and we have yet to be disappointed by the amount of work and effort they bring with them.And the best part is they have fun doing it – and that’s fun for us.
Global Youth Service Day came about in 1988 as a program created by Youth Service America and the Campus Outreach Opportunity League.From a single day on a single campus, the program has grown to include more than 1,500 projects all over the country.In 2000, the program was renamed the Global youth Service Day to reflect the fact that it now spans national borders and embraces youth volunteerism in many other countries as well.
The young volunteers will cover as much of the neighborhood as possible, and, if time permits, will be taken by DXC’s van to points farther away.If the weather is bad, though, they’ll be paired with our own teaching staff to take part in crafts and lessons with our students.
We’ll be posting an update on how the project goes and how much we were able to get done.We’ll take plenty of pictures to share, too.
Another year has closed out and that brings us to our preparations of filing our taxes. That means for the Dayton Christian Center a busy time of getting ready to host the 6th year of the VITA (Voluntary Income Tax Assistance) Program in partnership with the City of Dayton and CAP. VITA is an IRS initiative designed to promote and support free tax preparation service for the underserved, low income populations. These include the elderly, disabled, limited-English-speaking, non-urban, and Native American taxpayers.
We will have our resident expert Alan back for the 3rd year (as well as welcoming a new individual) preparing taxes. Phil Greene is our site administrator this year and will be working very closely with our clients and volunteers as well as our office support to ensure things run smoothly. So far we will be preparing taxes by appointment beginning February 14. If you would like to have yours done, please contact the center (937-275-7174) to schedule an appointment.
There will also be a kick-off "Super Saturday" event on February 5 at the Montgomery County Job Center where taxpayers will be paired with trained volunteers who will complete and file tax returns on the spot. The EITC and CTC have returned millions of dollars to thousands of working families and individuals in the Dayton area. The Dayton EITC Coalition, a group of community volunteers, is chaired by City Commissioner Dean Lovelace, with support from KeyBank. For more information on that event, click here or call United Way's HelpLink at 913-2000
Maybe more than any other time of year, the Christmas Season is a time for family and friends; of drawing closer together and sharing love and good times together. But not everyone is able to enjoy those things that many of us take for granted. There are so many adults and children who, living in nursing homes, hospitals or retirement communities watch from a distance while others trade gifts and hugs and laughter. All the time, they can only remember times when they, too, were part of those things.
A couple of weeks ago, the first group of Chaminade-Julienne Honor students came in to help us put together gift boxes for our family Christmas Party that takes place this Saturday. This past weekend, the second wave visited us to wrap the gifts and to make cheerful holiday cards that we will take out to shut-ins at local nursing homes, hospitals and retirement communities.
The young people threw themselves into their work with fervor – and as much good cheer as we’ve seen here in quite a while. There was laughter and good-natured joking, but most of all, you could hear statements about how they felt about what they were doing. They all felt that the simple act of folding a piece of paper, sketching out a little picture and writing a few words on it could bring a little light, a little happiness into lives that otherwise are empty.
The group last year made cards as well, but they were intended only for the gift boxes for our families. After we had wrapped the last gift, we found that we had quite a few cards left over, many of them very artistic and creative. It seemed a shame to just throw out the hard work of these young people, so we came up with the idea of visiting nursing homes and asking to visit those who normally did not get many visitors. During our visit, we would mention to the person that the card we were giving them came from a high school student at C-J. Without exception, this fact brought a smile to the faces of the people we were so privileged to meet.
So, this year, we decided to make it part of the overall project, and it appears that the students enjoyed it just as much as we do.
Perhaps the truest mark of the character of these students is that, on both weekends, when it came time to leave, they thanked us for letting them come in and spend their Saturday morning here, instead of sleeping or hanging out with their friends.
It’s the time of year for blessings to be counted. This year, because of these students, we’ll be able to add many more to our list.
Every once in a while, something happens that gives a renewal of belief.
Anyone who works in the non-profit, charitable sector understands that there are many hurdles and many disappointments to be dealt with and sometimes it can get pretty discouraging. When it comes to asking people to volunteer their time and talents, it can be particularly challenging. After all, everyone is so busy these days and with money as tight as it is with most people, we’re all working harder than we really want to, anyway.
Then, consider teenagers.
Any parent knows how hard it is to get a teen to do anything around the house and pitch in to get things done.
So, when 19 teenagers get up early enough to get to DXC by 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning to spend half a day doing good work for people they have never met, it’s really something very special.
That’s what happened last Saturday (Nov. 20) when the Honor Society students from Chaminade-Julienne donated their time and work to help us prepare the gift boxes that go out to our families at Christmas. Each year, we put together gift boxes from donated articles so that our families are sure to have something for the holiday. Each box, given to the kids by Santa, who makes a special visit just for them, contains clothing, a toy or game or two, and, for the older kids, school supplies. Parents get gift bags with household items and some little luxuries thrown as much as we can. All of these items come from our generous donors from all over the country, and we are always very grateful for that generosity. And, even though the economic climate has, as with everywhere, resulted in fewer donations coming in this year, the C-J students did their best to make sure every child will have a good Christmas. While some of the students put together the boxes – sorting through our cramped Christmas Room where we keep the clothing items, picking out just the right items for kids (“OH! Look at this! Isn’t it cute!”?) and getting them all to fit into a box – others put their creative talents to good use in making beautiful personalized Christmas cards to go in each box. About midway through the day, they two groups switched jobs so that everyone had a hand in the whole process. Throughout the day, every single one of them was polite and they never stopped working, showing a maturity that really was admirable in people so young.
And, when the day was over, each and every one of them thanked us for letting them come and volunteer! If that’s not enough to give you the Holiday Spirit, there’s more: we will be blessed again on Dec. 5 when a second group of C-J Honor Students come in to wrap the gifts and help us get them ready for the party on Dec. 11.
Sitting down to Thanksgiving Dinner this week, one of the blessings we can be thankful for are these wonderful young people who make it all worth it.
