Webster family project balloons from 5 top 50 as joy of helping, learning spreads

YOUNGSTOWN

Descendants of Donald and Louise Webster arrived en masse Friday morning to help prepare and serve meals at the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall.

Preparing and serving meals at St. Vincent de Paul on Front Street is a tradition for the Webster family that began five years ago “as a service project to demonstrate to the relatively privileged youth in our family that many in our community are much less fortunate, hungry and even homeless,” said Mark Boyd.

“Donald and Louise Webster were longtime residents of Youngstown, and we believe they would be very proud of this family tradition,” he said.

That first year, Boyd, of Columbus, arrived at the dining hall with two nieces and two granddaughters in tow: Gabrielle, Kierra and Daisha Boyd and Madison Hayes, who were little girls at the time.

He dubbed it the Webster Family Youth Project; but as the years went by, more and more adults in the family became interested, and the little girls became teenagers who say the experience makes them feel good.

More than a dozen of the 50 grandchildren, great-grandchilden and great-great-grandchildren of Donald and Louise Webster worked at the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall on Friday, many of them adults.

“Over the last five years, we have come to realize that the lesson [we wanted our children to learn] is just as meaningful and rewarding for the adults in our family,” said Mark Boyd, a 1978 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School and a 1983 graduate of Youngstown State University.

Read more about this caring family in Saturday's Vinicator or on Vindy.com.