UAW members care and share to help families in need

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

WARREN

General Motors Lordstown retirees Maryola Stemple and Linda St. John pass out corn and chicken broth in assembly-line fashion.

For several years they have come together to the United Auto Workers Local 1112 Care and Share food distribution at the union hall, and Wednesday’s event was no different.

They worked alongside other Local 1112 active and nonactive members to fill boxes for a little more than 300 families in need.

“It is the right thing to,” said St. John, who retired in 2005.

“It is rewarding to know we can help someone,” Stemple said.

That someone includes Ashley Rosa, a 31-year-old mother of two from Austintown. Her daughter, Arionna Bass, 3, joined her Wednesday to get an assortment of groceries from spaghetti sauce to peanut butter and jelly.

“It will help us get through the next few weeks,” Rosa said.

Rosa is a temporary worker at the Lordstown plant where GM’s best-selling car, the Chevrolet Cruze, is built.

“It’s a good company and a good union,” Rosa said.

Rosa’s name was put in by someone who works at the plant. Salaried and union workers both are able to fill out applications for someone in need. The union raises money to pay for the canned goods and other food essentials through fundraisers. Workers also bring in goods to add to the boxes for those in need.

“Every family gets the same amount,” said Karen Eusanio, chairperson of community services for Local 1112.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., between 70 and 80 food distributors, some military members and veterans, pushed boxes down one side of a table as workers on the other side filled the boxes. At the end of the line, the boxes were placed on a cart and put in each recipient’s vehicle. The whole process worked like an assembly line ­— what the GM Lordstown workers know well.

“Our membership is very generous,” Eusanio said. The Share and Care program “is near and dear to one’s heart. It started in the van plant with workers taking food to people.”

Jack Lunn, a retired GM Lordstown worker, was at the program Wednesday to lend a hand. He remembers when it first started about 40 years ago.

It started “because of the need out there,” he said.

There were times when 450 to 575 families would be helped.

“We fought for what we got and now we want to give back,” said Michael Aurilio, recording secretary for Local 1112.