On her way home the next day, she would look in again. And the cycle repeated day after day.
That was until Schalnat poked her head out of the door and invited her inside.
The older woman started volunteering at We Care Arts answering the phone.
Neuman said if Schalnat wasn’t ever able to answer right away, the woman who had started volunteering would start singing in place of the hold music they didn’t have.
“What was really amazing is that at the end of last year, we had an artist client who passed away, and her family came in, and they had actually done tribute donations for We Care Arts,” Neuman said. “And at that time, we found out that the woman that we had been serving was the daughter of the woman who used to sing on the phone.”
After finishing her story, Neuman, who nominated Schalnat as a Dayton Daily News Community Gem, said this generational giving wouldn’t be a thing without We Care Arts and Schalnat.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
“This wasn’t something where she was going, hey, you know McDonald’s is cool. I’m going to open up a Burger King, right? Like, this wasn’t something that was really happening (in other places),” Neuman said. “And I think that the secret sauce is really in Terry’s idea of everyone is welcome. Because I will tell you that since I’ve been here, I believe We Care Arts is something truly special.”
Schalnat opened We Care Arts roughly 40 years ago when she moved to Dayton with her husband.
Schalnat originally designed the organization to help people who were down on their luck, chronically unemployed or who needed a hand up.
“These were people with mental illness,” Schalnat said. “They were the people with physical disabilities, and they just needed someone to listen to them, to care about them, to recon to their souls and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got a lot of value. You can do a lot of stuff. All you need is a place to do it.’”
After about two years, it morphed into a place for a variety of individuals with developmental disabilities, substance use disorders and mental health diagnoses to increase their confidence and artistic skill, according to its website.
“I’ve been reaching out to other organizations that do art with veterans, or art with people with developmental disabilities, or art with substance use disorders, or art with people with mental health diagnoses,” Neuman said. “And I have not found another organization that puts them all in the class together.”
Now, after being retired for eight years and 78-years-old, Schalnat is on a new journey.
With the encouragement of her five sons, she agreed to being the Ohio District Optimist Organization’s governor. The Ohio District is a member of Optimist International.
“I have always been an optimist,” she said. “... A friend of mine says, she thinks I have serving and working with people in my genes, I’m genetically made to help people.”
Optimist International’s goal is to bring out the best in kids, in communities and in ourselves, Schalnat said. It’s also figuring out what kids need and how to support them.
“Then as volunteers, we raise the money, our clubs raise the money, and then we volunteer to help them,” she said.
It has sponsored events as well with one of them being a golf outing. If they win locally, they go to the Doral open in Florida where they compete to win money for scholarships. There’s also an oratorical contest given to each club where kids write speeches on various topics. They then present it to their local organizations to win scholarships.
“I have received phenomenal amount of satisfaction that my life is worth something,” Schalnat said. “When all is said and done, there was a value to me taking my first breath.”
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