Muncie -- Once a month, on the evening of the fourth Thursday, after the final bell had rung at South View Elementary — once the backpacks had been filled, the cubbies cleared out and the lights turned off — the school doors would open once more to welcome the students and their families. An event named The Big Idea, in                                                            partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank,                                                                    welcomed families to take home per- ishable goods                                                        and life necessities while speaking with teachers and                                                      faculty. h It was an event created to inspire students to                                                 think bigger and to build stronger communities, all                                                          the while working to take care of those in need.

                                                    But in the past two years, events propelled by                                                                  community volunteers such as The Big Idea haven’t                                                        been able to happen in full. In an effort to stop the                                                          spread of COVID-19, schools have opted to alter                                                            their food drives and other events, or indefinitely                                                            suspend them entirely.

“We’ve been really, really sad the last year and a half,” said Bekah Clawson, president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank. Clawson detailed how her organization’s event, created to inspire young students and their families, has continued since the be- ginning of the pandemic. In that time, it has been held in the park- ing lots of schools, serving as a drive by food pantry.
But as restrictions are lifted and recommendations change, Clawson, as well as other volunteer organizations throughout the community, are hopeful for their events to now achieve the social impact intended.

On Feb. 22, the Muncie Community Schools Board of Trustees voted to re- move the vaccine mandate for volunteers.

“Volunteers are huge for us because we always have a need to help work with individual children or with programs that can assist some of our families,” Andy Klotz, Muncie Schools’ chief communications officer, said. “We have food pantries in all of our schools that could use assistance with volunteers. And there are just a number of different ways that they can make an impact on stu- dents and their families.”

The list of volunteer actions dedicated to helping the students of Muncie is long, including organized efforts to fill weekend bags of food and evening read- ing clubs.

“There’s nothing quite like a volunteer that’s been trained on reading in- tervention, sitting there next to a stu- dent,” said Jenni Marsh, president and CEO of Heart of Indiana United Way, which is home to a number of partner- ships and programs directed toward education, health and community.

In the early months of 2020, Heart of Indiana United Way was set to launch Read United, an after-school, one-on- one reading program aimed at increasing literacy proficiency in three of Muncie’s elementaries: Grissom, Longfellow and South View.

When Muncie Schools transitioned to virtual learning that spring because of widespread shutdowns for COVID-19, United Way decided to postpone the launch of Read United. Instead, an on- line reading club attempted to fill the gap in tutoring for more than a year. Marsh explained that by the fall of 2021 — with all United Way volunteers vaccinated and masked — the program was able to move forward in-person.

“You have a core group of volunteers coming

into the schools, not because they have to be

there, but because they want to be there,” Marsh

said. “And what a difference that makes to the

kiddos, to have folks that are there because they

want to work with them, and they want to spend

some extra time with them.” 

Not all programs have been able to send

volunteers into Muncie schools, however.

Scott Metzler, a current member and former president of Muncie’s Kiwanis Club, said that over the past two years, connections were lost and volunteer numbers have tapered off.

Metzler explained how interest in the Kiwanis Key Club, an extracurricular of- fered at many high schools, has also waned since the beginning of the pandemic.

As a volunteer and mentor to local high school Key Clubs, Metzler said that he and other Kiwanis members have at- tempted to keep in touch and visit the different chapters in person.

Metzler said he attended a Key Club meeting at Yorktown High School. Ac- cording to the Yorktown Community Schools Reopening Plan, as of July 20, 2021, there has not been a vaccine man- date for any volunteers that enter any building.

“Trying to get into Muncie Central is challenging,” Metzler added.

“Central didn’t have their doors open to outside people,” said Felicia Dixon, Muncie Kiwanis Club liaison to Muncie Central High School’s Key Club.

“I’m going to a club meeting this Friday for the first time in a long time,” Dix- on said recently, explaining that she’s fully vaccinated and routinely wears masks in order to protect not only her- self, but students and children.

The lack of volunteers has only exacerbated the struggles school corporations have faced the past two years, including the educational setbacks students have experienced and not having enough teachers and faculty to cover all classrooms.

With the vaccine mandate for volunteers now dropped, Klotz said Muncie

school officials hope for a return of strong community engagement.

“I am sure it would,” Paula Mangus, Glad Tidings Church director of operations said. “When they ask us to serve, more people would be able to serve.”

Glad Tidings Church has had a long- standing partnership with schools in Muncie. Originally through the now- closed Sutton Elementary, the church’s reading club now works to help the stu- dents of Grissom Elementary.

Mangus explained how partnerships like this can have lasting effects on the community.

“By providing school supplies, financial help, help with homework and class time, along with mentor relationships, we hope we helped students in their academic endeavors. The teachers need and want community members to be a part of their schools,” Mangus said.

“I think there’s always been a desire for people who have been volunteering to come back,” Klotz said. “And it’s a very personal choice at this point. With COVID being where it is right now and the number of cases that have gone away so quickly in the last four or five weeks, that people will be opened up to returning to volunteer and do things they haven’t done on a regular basis.”

Muncie schools experienced a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases in January, recording 295 students infected. How- ever, in February, the district had only recorded 25 students infected as of Feb. 22.

The Muncie School Board also voted on Feb. 22 to amend the corporation’s mask policy, changing it to “mask optional.” On Feb. 25, guidance from the Centers for Disease Control stated that masks no longer need to be worn in “low” or “medium” risk areas. Delaware County was labeled as “high” risk for COVID-19 as of Feb. 26, but dropped to “medium” risk as of March 3.

For events such as The Big Idea, Bekah Clawson hopes that schools and the Delaware County community can re- turn to what once was.

“Since the pandemic started, we haven’t gone inside the schools,” Claw- son said. “We’re waiting to be invited back inside.”

And with the recent decisions from the Muncie Community Schools Board, Clawson believes that invitation is com- ing.

It’s about inspiring kids, she said. And the volunteers at Second Harvest and others throughout the community are looking to do that once again.