An annual March of Dimes Foundation fundraiser set for Oct. 25 will feature dinner, vintage wines and an auction.
This year’s Signature Chefs Auction will feature dishes from the following local eateries: Greenhouse Tavern, Beirut, Swig, Mancy’s Italian, Mancy’s Blue Water, Treo, Canal Junction, Indian Jewel, Rockwell’s, Home Slice, Revolver, and Tea Tree.
The event starts at 5:30 p.m. at Parkway Place, 2592 Parkway Plaza, in Maumee. Tickets are $75.
All proceeds will benefit the March of Dimes campaign to reduce the rate of premature births, birth defects and other serious threats to babies’ health. More than half a million babies are born too soon each year, including about 20,000 in Ohio, according to a news release.
Last year’s auction raised $55,000, said Jodi DiSalle-Horns, division director for Northwest Ohio.
A cookbook featuring recipes from the event as well as favorite childhood recipes from each chef will be sold for $15, with all proceeds also going toward March of Dimes, DiSalle-Horns said.
Hosted in more than 200 cities across the country, Signature Chefs Auctions have raised more than $132 million for the March of Dimes since 1989, according to its website. In 2009, the events raised more than $15 million.
For more information, contact DiSalle-Horns (419) 534-3600 or JDiSalle-Horns@marchofdimes.com or visit the March of Dimes website at www.marchofdimes.com.

The Oct. 24 issue of Toledo Free Free Press is available as an electronic edition.

“How would you feel, if at age 17, the government removed you from school, evicted you from your home, looted your bank account and stole all your family’s possessions?” asks author Chuck Weinblatt. “How would you feel if ruthless police prevented your parents from working, then deported you and your family to a concentration camp run by the most brutal of taskmasters? How would you feel if you lost contact with everyone you know and love, if you were sent to the most frightening place in history, and you were forced to perform unspeakable acts of horror in order to remain alive?”
Weinblatt takes readers through these historical atrocities in his novel “Jacob’s Courage,” which will be the focus of an Oct. 27 presentation at Monroe County Community College (MCCC).
Weinblatt, 57, a lifelong Toledo-area resident who lives in Sylvania, is a University of Toledo graduate and retired UT administrator. He said health problems forced his retirement six years ago, which provided him an opportunity to research and write.

Weinblatt

“I wanted to write a novel about the Holocaust and dedicate it to my family,” Weinblatt said in an Oct. 19 phone interview. “I had always known that members of my mother’s family disappeared in the Holocaust, but I did not know who they were until I began writing the book. I was sent a family tree that showed almost two entire generations of my family were wiped out in the Holocaust.”
The family tree Weinblatt referred to shows that of Menashe and Fayge Volk’s six children — Hya, Laya, Pesil, Aaron, Hanah and Avrom — all but Avrom died in the Holocaust; eight of the Volk’s grandchildren were also murdered in concentration camps or prisons.
“Avrom lived because he left Kovel, Russia, and came to the United States in 1911,” Weinblatt said. “He settled in Columbus and sent for his family about a year and a half later. That is how my mother and her sisters came here. If I had been born just nine years earlier, in Europe instead of the United States, I most likely also would have been a victim of the Holocaust.”
Weinblatt said he chose to write a love story that followed two adolescents through the Holocaust. While his characters are fictional, they, like the title character in “Forrest Gump,” are exposed to true historical situations.

Volk Family Tree (click to enlarge)

“I decided that the events surrounding my characters, Jacob and Rachel, would be real; everything that happens to them happened to real people,” Weinblatt said.
“Jacob’s Courage” follows the young couple from the forced ghettos to the concentration camps and beyond, with several harrowing twists and turns that allow Weinblatt to illustrate the myriad tragedies Holocaust victims faced.
“The camps were pure torture,” he said. “There was rampant typhus; people survived on a few hundred calories a day. There was no medical attention; people just started dying by the thousands, their corpses piled up like cordwood.”
In the novel, one of Jacob’s terrible dreams becomes a living nightmare when he is forced into a sonderkommando, where in real life, Jewish prisoners were forced to aid in the process of burning the bodies of Jewish victims.
The book contains graphic passages that do not shy away from the worst of the Holocaust atrocities, but Weinblatt said his intent was to demonstrate the resilient nature of mankind.
“I wanted to describe for people the most beautiful moments in life — falling in true love for the first time, making love to one’s soul mate for the first time, all of life’s triumphs that were experienced by the Jews who were prisoners of the Nazis,” Weinblatt said. “But then they experienced the most terrifying, horrifying brutality before they were shot and killed.”
Some of Weinblatt’s first-person research was conducted in Toledo. He said at one point, hundreds of Holocaust survivors lived in the Toledo area. There are now fewer than two dozen. One of those is his friend Philip Markowicz, an Auschwitz survivor. Markowicz was scheduled to appear at MCCC with Weinblatt but has canceled due to family illness. After narrowly escaping a lineup being held against a wall by Nazi machine guns, Markowicz moved to America, settled in Toledo and operated Phil’s TV and Appliances on Sylvania Avenue for almost 40 years. Markowicz wrote of his experiences in the book “My Three Lives.”
“Phil won’t be there, but I will read sections of his book at the presentation,” Weinblatt said. “He was born to a rabbi in Poland, and all he wanted to be was a rabbi. The Nazis sent his family to a concentration camp, and he lost his father to cold and starvation; his mother, sister and a nephew were sent to the gas chambers.
“He survived six different camps, including Auschwitz, and married a woman he met in one of the camps; they were married until she died in 2004.”
Weinblatt said “Jacob’s Courage” will be the focus of the evening, but he will also take audience questions.
“I want people to see that even in moments of terrible desperation, the Jews of these concentration camps lived, loved, observed all of their religious rituals,” Weinblatt said. “They found a way to keep the spirit of humanity alive.”
Weinblatt will appear Oct. 27 at Monroe County Community College at 7 p.m. in Whitman Center Room 4, located at 7777 Lewis Ave., Temperance. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information on the presentation, contact the Whitman Center at (734) 847-0559.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Call him at (419) 241-1700 or e-mail him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

During the Oct. 11 debate between Rich Iott and Marcy Kaptur, a question was asked about Iott listing his employer as “State of Ohio” and his occupation as “soldier” on a March 19, 2010, $500 donation to the Republican National Committee (RNC).
I found the information on the Federal Election Communications (FEC) website. I was looking at donations from Iott through the FEC because Iott told Toledo Free Press during an earlier interview that he had made several donations to Kaptur in the past. I was asked to research this for Toledo Free Press.
No campaign donations to Kaptur from Iott were online. Two additional donations were listed on the FEC website, a $1,000 donation to Kaczala for Congress on  June 22, 2004, with Iott’s employment status reported as “Self/Real Estate” and a 1997 donation of $250 to the Ohio Grocers Association Ohio Food PAC with Iott’s employment recorded as “Seaway Food Town.”
Since the FEC only has information after 1996 online, a formal public information request was made on behalf of Toledo Free Press for Iott’s political donations from 1982 to 1996. The FEC records showed one donation was made to Kaptur from Iott in 1992, which Iott has acknowledged.
Why Iott would list “soldier” and “State of Ohio” on these federal forms became one of the questions asked at the debate, sponsored by Toledo Free Press and FOX Toledo.
While Iott’s answer on the soldier issue could not be predicted, it was not anticipated that he would have no answer at all. At that point during the live debate, when Iott said he would need to see the documentation, I forwarded a screen shot of the “soldier” page to Toledo Free Press Editor in Chief Michael S. Miller, who was observing the debate from the FOX Toledo control room. Miller forwarded the e-mail from his phone to a FOX Toledo employee, who then printed it. Miller then walked the printed document to FOX Toledo reporter Shaun Hegarty, who was moderating the debate. Hegarty then presented the document to Iott.
This chain of events is not quite as nefarious as some of the rumors floating around suggest. Iott’s statement that he did not know how “soldier” and “State of Ohio” became listed on these forms necessitated further research.
Iott has made donations to political campaigns as reported by the  Ohio Secretary of State (SOS).  His employment status in two donations made within the same time period as the one to the RNC in 2010 are notated,  “Retired.”  There are several occupations listed for Iott in the SOS database for campaign contributions during the past six years.
Retired:
5/20/2010 – Re-elect Justice Lanzinger ($250)
2/25/2010 – Christiansen for Judge ($200)
7/18/2008 – Strickland for Governor ($2,000)
10/18/2006 – Strickland for Governor ($1,000)
9/15/2006 – Citizens for Gardner Committee ($200)
8/31/2006 – Strickland for Governor ($500)
11/16/2005 – Citizens for Gardner Committee ($200)
Attorney:
10/06/2006 – Citizens with Ujvagi ($100)
8/03/2006 – Teresa Fedor for Senate ($100)
3/22/2006 – Citizens with Ujvagi ($100)
10/04/2005 – Citizens with Ujvagi ($100)
No listing:
4/24/2006 – Teresa Fedor for Senate ($100)
1/28/2006 – Teresa Fedor for Senate ($50)
12/13/2005 – Teresa Fedor for Senate ($100)
President/Seaway Foodtown:
4/27/2006 – Citizens for Jim Petro ($500)
Private Investor:
9/17/2004 – Citizens for Gardner Committee ($200)
According to a staff member in the campaign finance division of the SOS, donations of more than $100 are required by law to list the employment of a donor; it is not required for campaigns to list this for donations $100 or under, though, some do provide this data.
As was reported online by Toledo Free Press on Oct. 20, Iott changed his donor information with the RNC from “soldier” to “self-employed” Oct. 19.
Iott’s political convictions can be questioned, since he has donated far more money to state Democrats than Republicans, with the Strickland for Governor campaign receiving $3,500.
If questions are raised about the many listed occupations of Iott, an occupation attributed to incumbent Marcy Kaptur should also be questioned. Research shows the accuracy of the  information reported to the  SOS and the FEC can be challenged.
The SOS campaign database for individual contributions reports Marcia Kaptur donated $100 on March 17, 2004, to Teresa Fedor for Senate. Marcia’s occupation is listed as a “Lobbyist.” Marcia Carolyn Kaptur is Kaptur’s birth name.
It’s not clear why or how Iott was listed as an attorney, which he isn’t, or president of Seaway Foodtown in 2006, just as it’s not clear why or how Kaptur was listed as a lobbyist. That is, however, how the information appears to have been reported by the campaigns to the Secretary of State. Since this is public record information, absent better processes in place to ensure the data is recorded properly, it’s up to candidates to know how individual contributions they make have been recorded.
The Internet makes this information just as accessible to them as it does to us.

Toledo Free Press contributor Lisa Renee Ward operates the political blog Glass City Jungle.

Representatives from Columbia Gas, Economic Opportunity Planning Association (EOPA) and United Way of Greater Toledo encourage people who are having a difficult time paying their utility bills this winter to seek help before services are turned off.
“Some people don’t have utilities. Some people are facing disconnection. Anytime this is happening it’s an issue,” said Tomeka Rushing, EOPA’s Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) coordinator, during an Oct. 18 press conference. “What we want to tell customers is, help is available. Customers just need to be proactive.”
Between Oct. 18 and April 15, as part of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio’s Winter Reconnect Program, customers can have their gas service restored for $175.
Customers can pay  to have gas service turned back on as long as they sign up for a payment plan to deal with past-due balances of their utility bill, said Chris Kozak on Columbia Gas of Ohio. Each customer gets one chance for the $175 reconnection during the winter, he said.
To reconnect services, Columbia Gas customers can call (800) 344-4077.
People who cannot afford the reconnect charge can, starting Nov. 1, receive assistance from EOPA’s HEAP to help pay the fee required to turn on gas.
Individuals can begin making appointments for HEAP assistance starting at the end of October. Contact EOPA at (866) 504-7392 for an appointment.
Bill Kitson, president and CEO of United Way, encouraged individuals who have trouble making payments to seek help right away, before problems escalate. If people don’t know where to seek assistance, they can call United Way’s 2-1-1 and be connected to the correct services, he said.
The Joint Utility and Social Services Committee will host information fairs throughout the community for those seeking help with utility bills, rental and medical assistance and foreclosure prevention, among others. The next event will be Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Chester Zablocki Senior Center, 3015 Lagrange St. Participating agencies include EOPA, Columbia Gas of Ohio, the City of Toledo, First Energy, The Salvation Army and more.
Families looking for ways to save on their heating costs can look at Page A13 of the Oct. 24 Toledo Free Press for a special mail-in offer for an energy saving programmable thermostat.

There are a number of critical issues and contests facing Lucas County voters Nov. 2, and while Toledo Free Press will not attempt to encapsulate every race and issue, we will use this space for the next two weeks to offer our thoughts and endorsements.

• Issue 7: This is a renewal of a 1 mill, 10-year levy for the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA). It is not a new tax. Established in 1971, TARTA has 34 routes and serves nine communities in northwestern Ohio. TARTA provides an essential service for many county residents, and we support renewal of this levy. The organization stumbled in its efforts to switch its funding to a sales tax and will have to examine its future carefully as the local population shifts, but there is no argument that TARTA provides a much-needed transportation lifeline.
• Governor: There are four men running for Ohio governor, but Republican John Kasich is our choice for trying to stop Ohio’s economic slide. Kasich’s experience in the U.S. House Budget Committee and his JobsOhio proposal, which seeks direct input from business owners and more responsibility on private enterprise, offers a clear logic that trumps unfulfilled promises.
• Secretary of State: Democrat Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, the clerk of Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, has served as a three-time Columbus City Council member and owns a small business, her family’s fourth-generation funeral home. She is running on a platform that is inclusive and comprehensive. She understands how the secretary of state office can impact economic development by making it easier (or more difficult) for businesses to register to do business in Ohio and navigate its resources, and she has our vote for this important office.
• US House District 5: Republican Bob Latta has been a consistent voice in the House and has proven to be remarkably accessible, offering pre- and post-vote reasoning with an accountability rare in many of his counterparts. He is the clear choice in this contest.
• State House of Representatives District 46: Republican Barbara Sears, the incumbent in this race, has earned endorsements from a wide array of organizations — farmers, CPAs, real estate agents, nurses, restaurant owners and the Toledo and Ohio chambers of commerce — which demonstrates her effectiveness as a representative. We agree with the chambers and endorse Sears.
• State House of Representatives District 48: While independent Schylar Meadows has our attention and is an emerging community leader, this round of political musical chairs goes to current city councilman and Democrat Michael Ashford, who will take with him to Columbus the community savvy and persuasiveness that have characterized his time in office.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Call him at (419) 241-1700 or e-mail him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

Related story: Ken Leslie interviews John Mellencamp

Related story: 1Mile Matters Walk debuts

When David Smith was diagnosed with prostate cancer after showing signs of it during a free medical screening last fall at Tent City, he was stunned.
“In my wildest dreams, I did not imagine that,” Smith said. “The doctor said cancer and I wasn’t registering that yet. I was thinking positive up to that moment … I started crying at that moment. But luckily it was caught early.”
The 47-year-old was one of the hundreds of Toledoans who visited Tent City’s Project Homeless Connect last year to obtain free medical services, meals, showers, haircuts, clothing, flu shots, IDs and other services.
After his exam showed an enlarged prostate, Smith had a biopsy, which revealed stage-two cancer.
When Smith first visited Tent City five years ago, he was homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol. Thanks to the help and encouragement he received there and from other local organizations, Smith has been sober and living in his own apartment for two years.  Since his surgery earlier this year, he can add cancer-free and employed to the list.
“I just have to be thankful that Tent City was there,” Smith said. “I’ve had a lot of bad days, but … my health is getting better. I’m so grateful, I really am.”

Ken Leslie

Organizers said this year’s Tent City will be bigger and better than ever.
“The campus is expanding, services are expanding, I think it just keeps getting better every year,” said Pastor Steve North, founder of LifeLine Ministries.
Tent City founder Ken Leslie said volunteer response has been huge as usual and nearly all slots have been filled.
The weekend-long event will kick off with a cookout at 5 p.m. Oct. 29, at the Civic Center Mall in Downtown Toledo. Project Homeless Connect will be followed by a barbecue dinner and entertainment. On Oct. 31, a pancake breakfast followed by a worship service will wrap up the weekend.
Tent City, an all-volunteer event founded in 1990 and restarted in 2006 after a six-year hiatus, is sponsored by Cherry Street Mission Ministries, Mildred Bayer Clinic for the Homeless, Mercy Health Partners and Toledo Area Ministries. In 2007, singer John Mellencamp visited Tent City while in Toledo; the event was the impetus for Leslie to found 1Matters, the group that organizes Tent City.
Leslie, a longtime advocate for the unhoused, said there are a lot of misconceptions about homelessness.
“When you say homeless, you think of those people you see in the street,” Leslie said. “Those are the chronically homeless. They only represent 15 percent of the homeless in America, but they represent 100 percent in our mind.”

Tent City

Only when you include people like those who are doubled- or tripled-up in one home because they can’t afford housing on their own do you start to realize the full scope of the problem, Leslie said.
Success stories like Smith’s are what keep Tent City’s organizers going in the face of discouraging statistics, like a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report that found that the number of families with children homeless due to foreclosure and job loss rose 30 percent between 2007 and 2009.
North and Leslie, both of whom were once homeless themselves, said Tent City is about building relationships and challenging perceptions.
“Tent City is important to me because this is the group of people I came here for, this is the issue that makes my heart beat fast and keeps my adrenaline pumping through long days and short nights,” North said. “In the end, everything we do is revolved around relationships, especially those who are isolated, neglected, kicked to the curb, stereotyped.
“This is a way of injecting dignity back into people from whom it’s been stripped, a way of recognizing the value of every person and engaging people in not just a shove a tray across a counter or a professional way, this is about really engaging and spending time and getting to know other people and letting them get to know you and having a genuine relationship where trust can be built and where help can be given and accepted.”
For information, visit the website  www.1matters.org.

The first 1Mile Matters walk in support of local unhoused kicks off during Tent City 2010.
“This year we’re attempting to bring a little more visibility to the plight of homelessness,” said Karen Soubeyrand, chairwoman of the walk. “This is a problem that can be solved, or at least we can gain some footing, if we work together as a community.”
The walk was added to Tent City activities as a way for more individuals to get involved and help out with the unhoused, said Ken Leslie, founder of 1Matters.
“One of our biggest problems [at Tent City] was having too many volunteers, so we were trying to think of a way we could engage more people,” he said.
The 1Mile Matters walk benefits 1Matters and its partners, including Toledo Streets, LifeLine Ministries medical mobile, Food for Thought and Cherry Street Mission Ministries.
“[The walk] will be a way people can come together as a community, to tell not only the members in our community, but the world that everyone does matter,” Leslie said.
Singer John Mellencamp provided the inspiration for 1Matters after he appeared at Tent City in November 2007 and took individuals to his concert, Leslie said.
“After the concert, one of the guys came back and said, ‘John talked to us from the stage. I guess I really do matter, don’t I?’ How could anyone not know in God’s great world that they matter? So that’s how 1Matters was founded,” Leslie said.
1Matters works to provide employment, shelter or services to the unhoused locally and is building a national campaign to help the unhoused.
“I view us and our role like football players. A player may get knocked down and I’ll offer a hand to help him get back up, but I’m not going to play his game for him. That’s the difference between a handout and a hand up,” Leslie said.
Mellencamp has continued to show support to the unhoused by recording public service announcements for Tent City, 1Mile Matters and World Homeless Day. The singer also granted an exclusive interview to be used in street papers across the United States.
“I think John believes the issue of domestic autonomy is critical for people to be the masters of their own fate. He is supportive of efforts where they can have a fresh start,” said Bob Merlis, the singer’s publicist.
Mellencamp has provided four tickets to his Nov. 19 show at the Fox Theatre in Detroit and the chance to meet him for the leading fundraiser of the walk. Additional prizes are available for other top fundraisers.
Registration begins at 10 a.m. with the walk at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 30. The roughly 1-mile walk goes from Promenade Park to Tent City in a zigzag path because “life isn’t straight.” The walk concludes with lunch.
Individuals can register online or the day of the walk. Those who raise at least $25 will receive a T-shirt.
To show support the walk, Leslie has recruited nearly every local media outlet, including Toledo Free Press, to be a sponsor.
To register for the race and learn more, visit www.1matters.org.

Ken Leslie: We first met two years ago when you made an unpromoted stop at the annual Tent City Project Homeless Connect in Toledo. You just wanted them to know they matter. Bob Merlis [Mellencamp’s publicist] told me you were touched by the experience. How so?
John Mellencamp: When you see what progress can produce, and also what progress can discard, it makes a feller wonder … calling it progress does not make it right.
In this country right now there is no middle class, no place for middle class. You are either really rich or you are really down and out. It’s hard times in this country right now.
KL: When you were on stage at Tent City, you spontaneously decided to invite everybody there to your concert, all of the unhoused people.
JM: Right.

John Mellencamp (AP)

KL: About 70 people went and I understand you talked to them from the stage about hope. As you know, one of the guests came back from the show and said “Ken, John talked to us from the stage — I guess I really do matter.” That was the founding moment of 1Matters and actually that’s why we’re here. Your whole career, you’ve had the compassion for and worked for those with little or no voice. What is the root of that compassion; where does it come from? Was there something in your childhood that started this feeling of compassion?
JM: Well for me, it started with race. I was in a band when I was 13, 14 years old and it was the mid-’60s and it was a racially mixed band. I was the lead singer and this black kid was a singer. He was a couple years older than me, really good. We’d play every weekend at fraternities and in hotels and stuff like that. It was a soul band. And I saw the way people treated him. It was like, ‘wow, really?’ Wait a minute, you loved him on stage but now he’s gotta go wait outside? And so I think that made quite an impression on me as a young guy.
KL: How’d you respond?
JM: Well, there were times that there were fistfights. I remember in a little town in Indiana there was a fistfight in between one of our breaks because of his race. So, you know.
KL: Since then, you’ve carried on standing up for farmers, for the people.
JM: Well, I’m Sisyphus myself; I’m always the guy who’s rolling the rock up the hill, and every time I get too close to the top, I either let it roll back down on purpose or it just rolls back, catches on fire and rolls down at someone. So I know what it’s like to have to work at something. My struggle is obviously different than some folks’ struggle, but, nevertheless, we all have our problems.
KL: How would you define your struggle?
JM: I’ll answer it like this:  A man writes to what he strives to be, not what he is.
KL: When I was unhoused and living in my car, you nailed the feeling of hopelessness in “Graceful Fall”: “It’s not a graceful fall from dreams to truth, there’s not a lot of hope if you got nothing to lose.”
Since 2007, foreclosures and job losses increased the number of families in shelters nearly 30 percent. Each night there are 640,000 unhoused Americans who have lost domestic autonomy and are living on the streets and in shelters, 15 percent are veterans.
As you did from the stage in Toledo, what are your words of hope to all of our brothers and sisters who are living on the streets of our country?
JM: Wow, that’s a big question, that’s an awfully big question … See, the problem is, most people give up too early and I’m not talking about just the people on the street. I’m just talking about people in general. They give up on relationships too early, they give up on themselves too early, they give up on life too early. I mean I’ve been writing that since I was a kid.
In the song called “Jack and Diane,” you know they were only 16 and already giving up. People just give up too early, they just quit, you know, “this is too hard,” or, “I don’t wanna do this anymore.” I think that’s a problem, and I think that’s a problem our country has.
Over the decades it was allowed to happen by the work ethic and through capitalism, a lot of things that affect this country that allow people to think that way, that the world owes them a living. And as soon as you start thinking that somebody owes you something, forget it man, you’re done.
And as soon as you start thinking you’re right and everybody else is wrong … It’s like the guy who was married six or seven times, hell, I think it might be me … I think this could be me, I’m starting to think this is my problem.

Edited from the original version published in Toledo Streets. Reprinted with permission of Ken Leslie.

Seventeen-year-old Deke Ludwig has always had a passion for environmental sustainability, converting a truck to run on electricity before he was old enough to drive it and speaking to school groups about alternative energy solutions.
But it was a “life-changing” exposure to homelessness and poverty last year in Toledo that prompted him to enter the fight against social injustice and recruit his peers to do the same.
The Monclova teen was one of six community activists — and the youngest ever —  to be honored with a Servant Leader of the Year award at the Servant Leadership Center’s (SLC) third annual recognition banquet Oct. 21.

Ludwig

Others honored were Ken Leslie of 1Matters, who has advocated for Toledo’s homeless population for more than 20 years; Lucy Russell, “a tireless volunteer for a myriad of community service initiatives;” Woody and Judy Trautman of the Northwest Ohio Multi-Faith Council, “an elderly couple with a vision for multifaith cooperation and peace;” and Dan Rogers, president and CEO of Cherry Street Mission Ministries, according to a news release.
The awards are given to innovative thinkers who serve and lead by example, said Steve North, director of outreach ministry at the SLC.
“[The SLC is] about identifying systemic ways of dealing with injustice rather than just incidental ways,” North said.  “So rather than people concerned with a particular case, we’re concerned with root issues and solutions. We’re looking for people who exemplify that kind of outlook and approach.”
All the honorees not only respond to community needs personally, but work to get others involved, North said.
“In the end, no real solution comes about without bringing people together. That’s the kind of thing that’s really inspiring, motivating and, in the end, transformative to their communities and ultimately the world,” North said. “These people demonstrate these things with their lives. None of them are satisfied with status quo answers.”
Ludwig’s passion for social justice issues was sparked after participating in Four Point Five, the SLC’s poverty immersion experience for high-schoolers, where the students spend four and a half days experiencing poverty and homelessness, including visiting migrant worker camps, spending a day with a homeless squatter, dumpster-diving for food and eating at a soup kitchen.
“It totally changed my life … it was an eye-opener,” Ludwig said. “I live in the country. I knew about homelessness obviously, but never thought it was right in my community. And Four Point Five just kind of opened my eyes and changed my life. It’s just, you don’t think about it until you actually see it.”
Since then, he has worked to recruit other teens to be a part of Four Point Five, as well as continues to speak about alternative energy.