{"id":12149,"date":"2025-12-23T13:39:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mealsofhope.org\/ohiosouth\/?p=12149"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:39:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:39:34","slug":"not-your-average-neighbor-ohio-woman-leads-110-volunteers-to-package-about-38000-meals-for-local-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mealsofhope.org\/ohiosouth\/blog\/2025\/12\/23\/not-your-average-neighbor-ohio-woman-leads-110-volunteers-to-package-about-38000-meals-for-local-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Your Average Neighbor: Ohio woman leads 110 volunteers to package about 38,000 meals for local families"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tWqc3ykjEbk?si=TGF8-uSLK6dGsiZq\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtrf.com\/top-stories\/not-your-average-neighbor-ohio-woman-leads-110-volunteers-to-package-about-38000-meals-for-local-families\/\">WTFR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>STEUBENVILLE, OH (WTRF) \u2013 In a season where many families are struggling, one Jefferson County woman is making a difference.<\/p>\n<p>Marci Crawford rallied more than 110 volunteers at Franciscan University to package tens of thousands of meals in just a few hours. What started as one woman\u2019s idea became a countywide effort to support those in need.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be a beautiful day\u2026 we\u2019re gonna make a difference in people\u2019s lives,\u201d said Crawford.<\/p>\n<p>Students, deputies, business owners, board members, and neighbors all came together to be part of the effort. Crawford partnered with the nonprofit <a href=\"https:\/\/mealsofhope.org\/\">Meals of Hope<\/a> to turn a Monday morning into a unified act of service.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re actually creating meals as a community. It\u2019s all dehydrated food, we\u2019re all putting it together, sealing it, and we\u2019re actually today passing it out to all the local food pantries and churches so that anyone in need will have a meal,\u201d<\/em> said Crawford.<\/p>\n<p>Volunteers formed a fast-paced assembly line to help move thousands of meals into Jefferson County food pantries.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cAnd it\u2019s gonna be about 38,000 meals that we\u2019re gonna be bringing out through Jefferson County,\u201d<\/em> Crawford said.<\/p>\n<p>But her efforts don\u2019t stop there. Crawford also leads the Jefferson County Women\u2019s Empowerment group, which helps women reconnect with themselves and rebuild confidence.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cBecause I think sometimes, especially as a woman, we try to wear a ton of hats. We are moms. We are business workers. We are helping others in the community and we\u2019re trying to do all this and then we kind of let ourselves go. You have to give yourself time to fulfill yourself before you can help others,\u201d<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n<p>Those who work with Crawford say she has a way of bringing people together.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cMarci has the gift of seeing the good in others and capitalizing on people\u2019s gifts. I really think that unites Marci as a person but also unites her with other people. She really just wants to build a strong community and make it even stronger,\u201d<\/em> said Amy Colantoni of Indian Creek Local Schools.<\/p>\n<p>Her leadership helped connect the county with Meals of Hope, whose team traveled to Steubenville to launch the project alongside her.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThey\u2019d be able to have those connections to the local community. Find people and energize people to come together. Take time out of their Monday morning to help pack meals and help serve their local community. We need more people like Marci to help do that all over the country,\u201d<\/em> said Mathew Durfee with Meals of Hope.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, Crawford reminded everyone that it\u2019s not about the numbers\u2014it\u2019s about unity.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThis is what I want people to realize\u2026 what a community can do when they\u2019re all together and putting their efforts into one thing,\u201d<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cMarci is turning neighbors into families through acts of kindness, through acts of love, and through the compassion she has for one another,\u201d<\/em> Colantoni added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy of WTFR STEUBENVILLE, OH (WTRF) \u2013 In a season where many families are struggling, one Jefferson County woman is making a difference. Marci Crawford rallied more than 110 volunteers at Franciscan University to package tens of thousands of meals in just a few hours. What started as one woman\u2019s idea became a countywide effort [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":12150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Not Your Average Neighbor: Ohio woman leads 110 volunteers to package about 38,000 meals for local families - Meals of Hope Ohio South<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Ohio woman leads 110 volunteers to package meals for local families, helping pack 38,000 meals and strengthen community food access.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mealsofhope.org\/ohiosouth\/blog\/2025\/12\/23\/not-your-average-neighbor-ohio-woman-leads-110-volunteers-to-package-about-38000-meals-for-local-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not Your Average Neighbor: Ohio woman leads 110 volunteers to package about 38,000 meals for local families - 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