Andy Close
Our readership continues to grow here at YourDailyLocal.com, and we want to thank all of you for coming along on this journey with us.
We know we haven’t been around all year, but that’s not going to stop us from reviewing the year that was in 2020.
Today we’ll take a look at five people who made an impact in 2020 in Warren County. We featured them all, but just in case you forgot…
- Mary Passinger: Featured in late November, Passinger has been helping Warren County ‘mask up’ since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Passinger, who has always been about helping others, took that to another level this year. She has made an astounding 4,000 masks, well, it’s probably more than that by now. She doesn’t ask for anything in return, although some people have insisted on making donations. “I don’t want fame and fortune,” Passinger said. “I want everyone willing to wear a mask to have one. I don’t want them to worry about paying for it. If they have a mask they like, they are more willing to wear one.”
- Praise Fellowship Kids: As part of the ‘teen advisory group’ at The Hub at Praise Fellowship, this group of young women and men have made a big impact.“We created The Hub for community outreach,” Sports Outreach Director Steve Younger said. “We wanted to have a group of teenagers from the community to give ideas about different things kids would like to see The Hub utilized for.” The group consists of teens of different ages from all across Warren County. The members are; Lucas Angove, Ailsa Boger, Alex Borger, Ian Darling, Lily Lauffenburger, John Page, Paige Rafalski, Zach Rohlin and Connor Younger.
- Allison Mineweaser: Creativity has been a theme in 2020, with everyone having to work with and around COVID-19. Mineweaser did that as well as anyone, coming up with the idea for a ‘Contactless Halloweeen’ event in Warren County this year. A group of Warren businesses provided the event, which was spearheaded by Snuffy’s Café & Lounge and Seneca Generational LLC. “Being an essential worker at Snuffy’s during COVID has truly made me appreciate the normality we used to have,” Mineweaser, who teamed with friend Kellie McClement, said. “My birthday is on Halloween and the thought of having no trick-or-treating started to dawn on me in September.”
- Emma Ruhlman: High school athletes have had to find different ways to get their work in, with multiple shutdowns. Ruhlman did that with a ‘Beat the Trainer’ challenge. “One of the Bruins (Ruhlman’s AAU team) assistant coaches retweeted Jeremy Hays’ beat the trainer challenge,” Ruhlman said. “My mom, she’s big into Twitter, saw it and said, ‘Emma, you should try this.’ So I said, ‘Sure, why not? “I think it was very beneficial. I can tell playing pickup and playing AAU I feel a little bit more comfortable in some ball-handling. Especially at my height, when I was younger I was playing a post, and now I want to play a guard in college and that’s something very important.” She also taught lessons to younger hoopers over the summer via Zoom as well.
- John Swanson: It was a great time in 2020 to expand upon existing hobbies and create new ones. Sports enthusiast John Swanson took that to heart. Among his many projects over the past year, ‘Swanny’ latest venture is collecting miniature replica football helmets, some autographed. Along the way, he has had some replicas made of local football teams. In addition to Warren, Eisenhower and county high schools, he’s expanded to other schools in PIAA District 10. “I get them from different places and put them together,” said Swanson of the materials. “Not sure how many. A few. Ha!”
