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Salvation Army prepares for holiday season

Sgt. Maj. Lorraine Linton officially retired Sept. 28 from the Salvation Army of Steubenville after a near 33-year career but is continuing as a volunteer cooking as part of her ministry. -- Janice Kiaski

STEUBENVILLE — The Salvation Army of Steubenville is preparing to help area residents in need this holiday season, but first things first.

Lts. Erik Muhs and his wife, Barri Vazquez-Muhs, corps officers and pastors at the post at 332 N. Fourth St., will be accepting Christmas applications next week but only during a three-day designated period.

That will be from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday and from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday.

Applicants must live in one of the following zip codes — 43952, 43953, 43903, 43913, 43938, 43943 and 43944 — and must bring with them an ID for everyone in the household, such as a driver’s license, birth certificate or benefit card; proof of address for all adults in the home, such as a utility bill; and proof of income and expenses.

Questions can be directed to the Salvation Army at (740) 282-5121 or erik.muhs@use.salvationarmy.org.

Other organizations such as Urban Mission and some local churches, Muhs said, already have taken applications for holiday assistance.

“So now what we do is take their information and find out who else in our zip code service area has not been served by any of those organizations,” he said, noting, “We really want to get the word out so everyone has food, and the kids have presents around Christmas time.”

Last year, the Salvation Army of Steubenville helped 96 families, representing one-person households to as many as a family of nine. “We run the gamut of just food for someone who is alone for the holidays to food for an entire family plus presents for children zero to 12 years old,” he said.

While thoughts of Christmas already are on the minds of Salvation Army officials, so, too, is the Thanksgiving Day meal and the return of the Shepherd’s Table, which provides a free Sunday meal.

The Thanksgiving meal is served from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 22. “Anyone can come in for a meal,” Muhs said, “and they’re also allowed one carryout meal for free to go home with them, so they can eat a meal here and take one home and that way have a dinner later on in the day.” There will be home deliveries made to seniors and the disabled with advance notice made. Such requests should be made beginning Nov. 1 and continuing through Nov. 16.

Muhs said the Salvation Army is blessed to have “a great cast of volunteers who come every year” to help with the Thanksgiving meal, but help with the Shepherd’s Table would be appreciated.

The Shepherd’s Table soup kitchen runs from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. every Sunday, beginning Nov. 4 and continues through the end of April. Exceptions are Thanksgiving Sunday, Christmas Sunday and Easter Sunday.

Although offering the hot Sunday meal is a longtime tradition for the Salvation Army, it typically has been on a start-and-stop schedule interrupted by the six-week Christmas kettle campaign fundraiser headed up by Sgt. Maj. Lorraine Linton, who officially retired Sept. 28 after a close to 33-year career but is continuing in a volunteer capacity and enjoys cooking for that particular outreach. As a retiree, that ministry, she said, won’t have to be interrupted.

Muhs said people are welcome to attend the Sunday church service that begins at 11 a.m. before gathering for the meal typically served to about 60 people.

Volunteers to help with meal cleanup or interested in donating food items can contact the Salvation Army to make arrangements.

Muhs said he is grateful that Linton will be continuing in a volunteer capacity, and appreciative, too, for all her guidance when he first came to Steubenville in June 2017.

“She has been a fixture of this community, and she’s been a great help to me,” Muhs said. “Once she heard a brand new lieutenant fresh from the seminary school was coming, she was going to retire last year, but she wanted to give me a year of everything she had from all her knowledge and contacts in the community and who to talk to and show me the ropes of what it takes to run the Salvation Army in Steubenville,” he added.

Muhs said that Linton as an employee served as office manager/cook and as a corp sergeant major, is “like a head deacon in our church.” While she is retiring from the employment side, not so for church interests.

“She will be staying on as a volunteer two days a week in the office to help with adult programs on Wednesday and to help do general office work on Fridays and help us during our kettle season,” he said.

The Salvation Army has a 10 a.m. home league for women 16 and older. “It’s a time where they can get together and have Bible study and art projects and do service projects,” Muhs said. There also is a men’s club of the same nature held on Wednesdays at 10 a.m.

The transition from employee to volunteer suits Linton.

“When I said I was going to retire, I said I would continue cooking. That’s part of my ministry,” Linton said. “I am 77 and really feel it is time to step down, but not step away. I am not going to sit home and do nothing, so I will help with the Shepherd’s Table and dinners. I am not going anyplace. I will still be around and involved,” said Linton, who grew up in Buffalo, N.Y.

It was during high school that she was introduced to the Salvation Army through a friend who had invited her to be part of its Girls Guards program, which is similar to Girl Scouts.

The former Lorraine Saemenes accepted what was a calling and completed officers training in the Bronx, commissioned as a lieutenant first in Hornell, N.Y. She also would serve at Mount Carmel, Pa.; Allentown, Pa., by then a captain; Salem, Ohio; as protem corp officer to Steubenville in January 1969; then Toledo, resigning in 1973 to get married to her husband, Albert “Tom” Linton. She returned later in the 1970s to Steubenville, a “very friendly community” where her duties have included, among other things, handling the annual kettle campaign.

“We’re small, but we do a lot,” Linton said of the local Salvation Army through which she has enjoyed fostering friendships and fellowships with many people.

“I am a people person. I enjoy helping people,” she said.

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