“Legacy” is an ap­­­­propriate word to describe the annual winter warmth project at First Church of the Brethren in Altoona.

The program benefits the Solid Rock Bible Camp in the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. One of the largest youth camps in Alaska, Solid Rock welcomes hundreds of campers each year, both in the summer and winter months.

Congregants have been donating either handknit or store-bought mittens, winter hats and scarves to be shipped to the camp each winter for the last 64 years. The items are then distributed to needy people in the communities surrounding the camp.

Parishioners Vera Rutherford and Virginia Ross were the trailblazers for the project in 1958, the same year Solid Rock was opened. Solid Rock business manager Valerie

McKenney said the camp was founded by her uncle and aunt, Altoona natives Bert and Donna Schultz.

The Schultzes were missionaries and moved to Alaska to start a youth camp as an outreach opportunity for the locals in Soldotna and the surrounding communities. The couple had connections with a few different churches in the Altoona area, First Church of the Brethren being one of the main ones.

According to McKenney, the church supported the couple’s mission efforts and financially backed the camp from the beginning. Rutherford and Ross decided to support the camp and its community by sending the handknit items in addition to the financial help the church was already sending.

Rutherford and Ross ran the operation on the Altoona end until they were older and unable to continue the same level of involvement. Rutherford’s niece Mary Anne Oessenich — who was married to Ross’s nephew Frank — then helped pick up the program, but Oessenich said it was the entire church that really made sure the project continued.

“Vera had always crocheted and she was a seamstress,” Oessenich said, but “I never had the gift personally,” so she bought items to contribute.

The mission was “very important” to Oessenich since it had been part of her family for a good part of her life. Oessenich and her husband were part of the church their entire lives to that point, and Frank eventually became pastor in 1988, retiring in 2003 after 15 years of service.

Oessenich said the church was quite big at that time and there were often “hundreds of caps and mittens” donated. The church also has a Christmas tree which congregants cover with hats and items for the project each year.

After her husband retired, Oessenich gave up her lead role and, once again, different church members stepped up to make sure the project lived on.

One of those congregants was Jeanie Geist. Geist now organizes the program annually, but she said she is not the only one who makes the project happen.

“The entire congregation has continued this really special mission,” Geist said.

Not only do members donate items to be shipped over to the camp, but Geist said they also donate money to go toward fraying the shipping costs, which Geist said can be pretty exorbitant depending on the size of the shipment.

“Everybody has continued to be very generous,” Geist said.

This year, the church will have a special visitor to talk about the impact the church’s donations and contributions have on Solid Rock.

McKenney will speak at First Church of the Brethren on Sunday for the first time in several years. McKenney said she and her husband — a former executive director for the camp — used to try to come to Altoona every four years to visit the churches who support Solid Rock, but COVID-19 canceled their 2020 trip, along with health complications that ended up taking her husband’s life.

But McKenney made the trip this year and hopes this will restart that four-year commitment. She is in awe — and grateful — that the relationship with First Church of the Brethren has endured more than six decades and remains as strong as ever.

“It’s an amazing thing that the relationship has lasted as long as it has,” McKenney said.

McKenney said the camp wouldn’t be able to do all the things it does without the contributions from churches like First Church of the Brethren. Most campers would not be able to afford to come to the camp if they were charged the full price of what it would actually cost to host one child.

“They are paying direct and indirect expenses” to keep costs low for campers, McKenney said.

As for the winter warmth program, McKenney said the camp gives items to other local ministries, like pregnancy centers and Love INC, so that they can hand out clothing to people with whom they interact on a regular basis.

Other items are distributed directly by the camp and campers. The leftovers are then sent to ministries like SOAR International Ministries, which flies across the Pacific Ocean to deliver the clothing to communities across the Siberian region of Russia.

Even with all the turnover in attendance and parishioners, Geist doesn’t foresee the program or the relationship with the camp ending any time soon. The church sent a roughly 40-pound package to Alaska this year, proving that the congregation is as invested as ever.

That makes Oessenich happy to hear.

“My heart was so pleased when Jeanie called” and said the program was continuing this year, Oessenich said.

She said the project is truly a “labor of love for the camp.”

Mirror Staff Writer Nate Powles is at 814-946-7466.