Brown paper bags of flour and sugar might not seem like much, but the sustenance and sweetness within are part of a century-old Yellow Springs holiday tradition that connects community members.
Since 1894, staff members of this Greene County village have been delivering baking staples — and some good cheer — annually to their neighbors who have lost a spouse.
This year, three public works staff took off in the early hours of a chilly November morning to visit with local widows and widowers, delivering those bags filled with 5 lbs each of flour and sugar.
Despite the early morning hour, a number of them gleefully greeted the delivery crew in their pajamas, thanking them for their services.
“The impact is so subtly positive. I really appreciate it," said 87-year-old recipient David Anthony.
Anthony has lived in Yellow Springs for 10 years but this is the first year he has been part of the program after his partner passed away last May.
Anthony is one of 92 recipients this holiday season. Many of them have been part of the program for years after losing their loved one.
All those pounds of pantry staples are prepared and loaded for distribution at Tom’s Market on Xenia Avenue.
It’s been that way for as long as the Market’s owner, Jeffrey Gray, can remember. He said the store was part of the program long before his father Tom took over in the Market in 2001.
“It's great that, first of all, that it's being done," he said. "So to take care of those people in need, and then also that the village is keeping that investment here in the community.”
Gray said the distributions start the same each year with public works staff piling the products into trucks behind Tom’s Market.
“It's kind of like a fireman's brigade, where they just unload it all out the back door and into the trucks," he said. "And I believe they take it to one of their shops or something and divvy it up into the individual bags and then drive around and deliver it.”
The free deliveries are thanks to a longstanding agreement between the village of Yellow Springs and community benefactor, Wheeling Gaunt.
As a formerly enslaved person, Gaunt found acceptance in Yellow Springs in the 1860s. He began buying and selling real estate, eventually earning the status of the wealthiest man of color in Ohio.
But his lifelong motto was, “It’s not what you have, but what you share.”
When he died in 1894, he donated 9 acres to the village, stipulating that proceeds from the land be used to help widows in the community around the holidays.
Tanner Bussey, a member of Yellow Springs Public Works, said deliveries used to kick off the first week of December. But now they make their way to recipients prior to Thanksgiving.
“Because of the holiday, there's a lot of cooking going on and it seemed like a good time that you'd get ahead of it, and if you didn't cook for Thanksgiving you'd have it available for Christmas," he said.
After over a decade carrying out Gaunt’s wishes in Yellow Springs, Bussey said he has grown to have a deeper appreciation for the widows and widowers in the village.
Especially since he was a 30-year-old newlywed during his first deliveries.
“It was kind of a different look at more of what the finish line is like when you're married and have a partner like that,” he said.
The crew's second to last delivery of the morning was to 96-year-old Nancy Lewkowicz, who has lived in the village since the 1960s.
Her daughter, Ann Lewkowicz, said this is the fourth year they have received the gifts of flour and sugar.
“It's wonderful that we have this connection back to Wheeling Gaunt from I think over a hundred years ago," she said. "It's wonderful we still remember him, and it's still wonderful that his bequest is still able to benefit people.”
Before packing up for the day, Bussey looked back on the memories he has accumulated over the years, one of his fondest coming from a regular on Allen Street, Mrs. Simpson.
“She would open the door and look at me surprised and immediately her eyes would fill with tears," he said. "And I was just a stranger to her when I met, and I didn't really see or interact with her any other time but this time of year. And every year I'd bring it in and every year she'd hug me. And every year, she said, ‘I can't believe another year has passed. I'm so glad to see you again.’"
