MCC kicks off centennial year with Great Winter Warm-Up

Marita Strasbaugh, 7, and her mom Jenny Strasbaugh of Dalton work together on a quilt.
Greta Conrad, 12, of Dayton drove three hours with her mom and older sister to take part.
At least 122 quilts were made over the weekend during the great Winter Warmup at Salem Mennonite Church in Kidron.

PHOTOS BY ROBERT McCUNE | DGKN

KIDRON

Winter weather advisories Saturday didn’t stop some determined individuals and families who live hours away from traveling icy, slushy roads to make their way to Salem Mennonite Church.
Their hearts were set on being part of an international effort to provide comfort and warmth to those in need.

The first big snowfall of 2020 wasn’t going to deter them.
Greta Conrad, 12, of Dayton, was among children and teens who were busy working on blankets throughout the day that will be shipped to people throughout the world. She braved the snowy three-hour drive from Dayton with her mother, Carol Conrad, and older sister, Katie McCoy.
“We had planned to do it a long time ago,” Carol Conrad said, “and I said, ‘Watch it be bad weather that weekend,’ and of course it was, but what I said to my daughter was, ‘Refugees don’t get to choose what kind of weather they travel in and I thought, you know what, we don’t get to choose either and we’re going to go.”
This past weekend, Mennonite Central Committee kicked off its year-long celebration of its 100-year anniversary by bringing volunteers together to make comforters. MCC, which was founded in 1920, provides humanitarian relief, encourages sustainable development and strengthens peace-building initiatives in more than 50 countries, according to a news release. Comforters and blankets have been part of MCC’s relief resources ever since the end of World War II. In 2018, MCC sent more than 53,000 comforters to a dozen different countries.

Read more in the Jan. 22, 2020 edition of The Dalton Gazette & Kidron News.