Editorial: At a distance, community groups and churches are still connecting

Tribune-Review
Monday, March 15, 2021 6:01 a.m. | Monday, March 15, 2021 6:01 a.m.

Go Ad-Free Today!

Shirley McMarlin | Tribune-Review

A prayer box at Heritage United Methodist Church on the Ligonier Diamond.

While everyone is eager to put the coronavirus pandemic in the rearview mirror, there are pieces of the last year that could carry through to what comes next.

We may be more open to masks during flu season in the future. We may better appreciate the value of a sick day or the role a bottle of hand sanitizer can play in staying healthy.

But there are also the ways we can reach out to each other while still staying at a distance.

These aren’t entirely new. For several years, little free libraries have provided a means of offering books via little wooden cabinets tucked into parks and yards and other nooks. Have a copy of “Anna Karenina”? Leave it. Want to read this James Patterson novel? Take it.

But increasingly the little structures — bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a shed — have taken on new functions. They have become food pantries, with plenty of school or Scout service projects adopting them as a way to reach out to the community.

The Sharpsburg Community Library is using one to offer nonperishable items to people who need just a small helping hand, day or night.

And in the time of covid, that model has been adapted all the more.

In 2020, some people offered the kind of products that were in high demand and short supply. Toilet paper. Antiseptic wipes. Soap.

Now there is one more thing you can seek or find in these small boxes in an uncertain time.

Prayer.

The New Stanton Assembly of God has built a prayer box, placing it at the Family Life Campus on Thermo Village Road, to collect requests from those in need. The Heritage United Methodist Church at the Ligonier Diamond has done the same.

“There are always distraught people out there with no one to help them,” said Ron Ingelido, lead pastor. “The community has to know that we’re there in their time of need.”

Maybe one takeaway from the pandemic can be that you don’t have to touch a hand to reach out for one. It could also be that there is always a way to offer help, even at a distance.