Volunteers from all walks of life helped with Saturday's distribution of holiday food, Easter baskets and more at the North Wheeling Community Dream Center. (Photo by Eric Ayres)

WHEELING – Unseasonably warm and sunny spring weather greeted people gathered outside the North Wheeling Community Dream Center on Saturday, when the Bethlehem Apostolic Temple and a team of volunteers helped make Easter a little brighter for hundreds of local families.

A total of 307 people of all ages and all walks of life came through the doors of the Dream Center on Saturday morning, accepting a wide variety of food items for the holiday, along with Easter baskets and candy for children, clothes, books and more.

Bishop Darrell Cummings, pastor of the Bethlehem Apostolic Temple, indicated that despite the huge effort, they can’t help everyone in the community who needs it, but at least they try to help as many as they can.

“I’d like to think it’s important. I don’t know that it’s important to everybody, but to about 300 or so people, it’s very important,” he said.

The Bethlehem Apostolic Temple started the Easter food distribution event 35 years ago, and it has been helping Ohio Valley residents and families in a similar fashion to the church’s other holiday food giveaways – including those during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

“We started the Easter event in 1991, and obviously since then it has grown,” Cummings said.

Over the years, the annual holiday food distribution has taken place at different locations, but in recent years, the North Wheeling Community Dream Center has been home to the event. On Saturday, teams of volunteers from the church, Wheeling Fire Department, Ohio County Sheriff’s Office, local businesses and civic organizations, and others joined forces to help the cause.

“These are people who live in the community and who see what we’re trying to do and believe in what we’re trying to do,” Cummings said of the volunteers.

Plans for this year’s Easter distribution had been hopping along without a major sponsor until The Health Plan announced just this past week that it would take on the task this year.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s an Easter miracle,” Cummings said of The Health Plan’s sponsorship. “It didn’t cover everything, but it covered a significant amount. It’s been a tremendous blessing.”

Others also stepped up to help the cause, including local organizations as well as individual people in the community who took part in the “Stuff the Bus” event, which collected donations for the Easter food distribution on Thursday outside of Riesbeck’s in Elm Grove.

Cummings noted that times are tough for many people. Following an especially cold winter with high heating bills, high prices for gasoline and groceries, and news about the struggling economy, the partial government shutdown and war overseas, everyone could use a break from the adversity, according to the bishop.

“All of these things make it a little more stressful for everyone,” he said, noting that Easter is truly a time of rebirth. “Hopefully, this is a resurrection. Hopefully we’re coming out of the war, hopefully prices will go back down. Until then, people have to eat, and we’re hoping that we’re showing the love of God, the love of community and that we care.”

Those who came forward to accept food and other items during Saturday’s Easter distribution expressed their thanks, and Cummings noted that it’s sometimes difficult for people in need to come forward when times are tough.

“Everybody needs help sometimes,” Cummings said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of to need help. There’s everything to be ashamed of to need help and refuse to receive it. Help is available.”