Alliance leaders celebrate MLK, community members

Alliance’s community and faith leaders gathered Sunday to celebrate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and to hail heroes in our midst who carry on the slain civil rights leader’s work.

The service at Second Baptist Church in Alliance was the 13^th annual, planned by the city’s Urban Pastors Association.

Host pastor was Willie Bell of Second Baptist Church.

Church leaders from around the Carnation City took part in the celebration, sharing King’s biography and readings from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

During the service, several individuals and groups were honored. Among them were the Alliance High School boys basketball team.

The service also included the awarding of the group’s ICON Awards. The prizes are given annually to individuals and groups that go beyond the norm, blazing trails of their own and making personal sacrifices through leadership for the betterment of others.

The 2023 ICON Award recipient are Raymont and Brenda Johnson; Ande’Marie Green; Lisa Mallard; and Alliance Community Pantry.

Green was born and raised in Alliance, and graduated from Alliance High School and the University of Mount Union, where she received a bachelor of education degree. After graduating, she worked as a teacher in Chicago before returning to Stark County, where she now is employed by Canton City School District. Green is co-founder with her sister A’sarah of a nonprofit organization called Pink Ace Association, which offers free community events that uplift cultures.

Alliance Community Pantry is celebrating its 12th anniversary. Inspired in 2004 by a program about the hunger situation in Alliance, for five years the Alliance Kiwanis Club organized monthly food giveaways that included more than 500 people lined up once a month to receive a wide selection of food obtained from the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. From that experience, they opened the pantry Nov. 15, 2010, and since then it has operated as an all-volunteer, non-profit organization with the motto "Working Within the Community to End Hunger." About 50 volunteers a week operate the pantry. In the last three years, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pantry had to transition from being a select pantry set up like a little store four days a week, to one that boxes up canned food, produce, meat, baked goods and milk to deliver outside to clients' cars three days a week. In 2022, 1,356 families received food, representing 3,966 individuals. The pantry gave away nearly 800,000 pounds of food.

Mallard was born and raised in Alliance and is married to Fred (HipHop) Mallard. She is a 1977 graduate of Alliance High School and attended The University of Akron. She is a lifelong member of Tabernacle Baptist Church under the present Leadership of Pastor Aaron Hill Sr., where she serves on the Board of Trustees, as treasurer, on the Praise and Worship Team, and is a member of Gladys Merrell Temple #1049, Northern District Council #10 and Order of Eastern Star Starlite Chapter #83. Mallard was hired June 4, 1984, by the Alliance Water Billing and Collection Department under Mayor Francis Carr. She was the very first Afro-American to work in the Billing and Collection Department. After 38 years of service, she is still employed with the City of Alliance as chief clerk under Mayor Alan Andreani and Safety Service Director Michael Dreger.

Revs. Raymont and Brenda Johnson are deeply involved in the City of Alliance. Raymont spent more than 40 years as a manager and leader in both the corporate arena and in the United States Air Force, where he spent nearly 25 years before retiring in 2007. Raymont is president and founder of the couple’s non-profit, Family Empowerment Ministries Inc., which has a mission to unite and strengthen families, through many outreach and training programs.  He is also Senior Pastor Spirit of Faith Christian Center of Ohio. Raymont received the University of Mount Union’s 2018 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award and the Alliance Ohio School District 2018 Pathfinder Award for Humanitarianism. He was recently recognized by Marquis Who’s Who 2021-2022 and the “You Know You’re From Alliance” Religious Leader Award. Brenda Johnson is a compassionate, determined community leader, an ordained minister, and dynamic teacher in her own right. She serves as the assistant pastor to Raymont at Spirit of Faith CC Ohio. She serves as vice president of RBJ Properties, Inc. and Family Empowerment Ministries, Inc. In April 2019 Brenda became creator and owner of a food business called BJs Kitchen, Scratch Made Comfort Food at its Best, specializing in the mobile food scene, catering, educating and mentoring youth interested in food careers. She received the Alliance Ohio School District 2018 Pathfinder Award for Humanitarianism. In 2022, Brenda received the Alliance Kiwanis Club, Community Service Award. Raymont and Brenda Johnson have been married for 40 years and have five children and 10 grandchildren who reside in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Alliance leaders celebrate MLK, community members