Kent Social Services is ‘place of peace’ for the community

Kent Social Services located at 1066 S. Water St. is in need of donations, especially gift cards, this holiday season. 

Long dining tables and numerous chairs fill up most of the room. A Christmas tree sparkles in the corner and lights hang from the ceiling. Christmas carols playing from overhead speakers mix with the hum of the dishwasher. The last volunteer takes a lap, making sure everything is clean and in its proper place.

“We had a family come in that homeschools its kids, and they did the decorations,” said Marquice Seward, assistant program manager for Kent Social Services (KSS). “They put the tree up and everything. We try to decorate for every holiday including Easter and Thanksgiving.”

Programs and services

Kent Social Services, a hot meal and pantry program, serves nutritious meals six days a week to those in need and holds toy drives during the holiday season.

“Right now we have a little over 1,000 who are on our program, but we service a little over 600 of those families,” Seward said.

Through the pantry program, The Lord’s Pantry, low-income families and individuals are provided with bags of groceries.

“Our consumers are able to come in once a month, every 30 days, but can come in more than that on an emergency basis,” Seward said. “During the holidays, we offer holiday food baskets as well as Christmas toys for families with children.”

Who KSS helps

Senior citizens and children are among the largest groups that benefit from the services KSS provides.

“We usually see a lot of seniors and a lot of lower-class families,” Seward added.

According to Kent Social Services website, currently 20 percent of pantry participants are senior citizens and 34 percent are children. Of the meal participants, 29 percent are over the age of 60. Meals are served to around 50 to 60 individuals a day. To sign up for these programs, individuals must show proof of residency, proof of income, which is new this year and regulated by the Department of Agriculture, and a photo ID.

A family of 14 provided a meal this past Thanksgiving, but a meal will not be served Christmas day unless a family volunteers to make it.

“We provide the food; the volunteers cook and serve,” Seward said.

Those in need can also visit KSS’s sister agency, The Amelia DiGirolamo Center of Hope, located in Ravenna. Seward said the number of those served from Thanksgiving to the end of December fluctuates a little.

“I know for November we only had four new families that were registered,” she said.

She added that people call seeking rental assistance or assistance paying their utilities, but this is not a seasonal service request; it is on an ongoing basis.

Volunteering

KSS currently has 26 core volunteers and others from Kent State, schools and churches.

“With our Sunday meal program, we have two churches that are on a rotation basis,” Seward said. “And on Thursday night when we serve dinner, we have six churches that serve on a rotation.”

Among the volunteers from Kent State is the women’s soccer team who made sure a group of at least four teammates volunteered once a week all semester.

“As a team, we decided we needed to get involved in a community service project to give back to the community,” said Stephanie Haugh, a senior on the team. “We wanted to give our team a better opportunity to build a good character outside of the student-athlete life. It also gave us a chance to bond with our teammates.”

Haugh said the team started a food drive, the Fall Food Fight, as the service project. Other fall sports teams were asked to partake in a men vs. women food collecting challenge. The teams had bins out at all of their athletic events, and the food was dispersed between the two centers the soccer team volunteered at weekly.

“We served food at both Kent Social Services and The Center of Hope,” Haugh said. “You don’t realize that through these experiences you may make personal relationships with some of the people. It’s very comforting to know they enjoy having you around and that your effort to help is appreciated.”

Haugh and Seward both recommend volunteering or helping these centers in some way, big or small. In addition to donations and non-perishable food items, Seward said KSS lacks a lot of fresh produce. It and gift cards are always a need.

“We usually give gift cards out to our homeless folks because they don’t have anywhere to cook their food,” Seward said. “A lot of people that we deal with, this is like their place of peace, I should say. A lot of clients we see come from the time that we open until the time that we close. So we see and have a lot of the same clients day to day and some new faces. Everyone looks out for each other. We are family here.”