By KATY GANZ

Staff Writer

MILLERSBURG -- An average Thanksgiving at the Frames includes four turkeys, 20 pies, four tables and more than 40 people.

"Some have gone over to the Gulf, some are in Iraq, some are husbands and spouses," Dorn Frame said.

But most of the people do not have a biological connection to Frame, and the home where Thanksgiving takes place isn't even his.

Frame is a teaching parent at the Christian Children's Home of Ohio near Wooster. He works with children who have been removed from the homes of their parents. Over the years, these same children have become part of the Frame family. They eat their holiday meals alongside Dorn and Kandy Frame's biological children, Heather and Josh, at Children's Home Cottage 4.

"On Thanksgiving, they all have an open invitation to come back," Frame said. "We feel proud that we were able to touch so many lives. They are parents themselves, some, and it's fun to watch them do that."

Frame spent more than 25 years taking care of other people's children, but that's exactly what he always wanted to do. Decades ago, Frame was one of those children.

"I turned 18 in a children's home, and when you grow up in the system, you always feel you want to give back," he said.

No one can underestimate the importance of a father figure in the life of a child.

"With a male role model, the child would learn how to grow up to be a man in a healthy way and deal with situations that confront a boy growing up," said Cindy Orlasky, vice president and chief clinical officer for The Counseling Center of Wayne and Holmes Counties. "And a mother will do her best, but she can't speak from experience."

According to statistics supplied by Dan Jackson, director of Holmes County Job and Family Services, children raised in homes without father figures are at higher odds of being incarcerated. And in the past 18 years, the correlation between single-parent homes and violent crime is on the rise.

"In today's society, it's important," Frame said. "The absence of a father -- it's (a father figure) something kids are always looking for."

In Holmes and Wayne counties, many kids have found what they were looking for in volunteers -- men who have families but who open their lives and homes to children who otherwise would grow up alone.

Growing up, Frame remembers having positive male role models at the children's home. Now, Frame can be found most summers sitting in a chair underneath his tree on the grounds of the Christian Children's Home of Ohio keeping a careful eye on all his kids. Frame gets to be that positive male role model, he said.

He tries to teach kids what it's like to have someone who cares. Many of the children in the home have never had anyone they truly trusted.

"That's why we have a rocking chair, to nurture," Frame said. "I've rocked 18-year-olds. The key is just being willing to give."

At Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Central Ohio, volunteers are encouraged not to act as parents, but to help fill in the gaps, said Jamie L. Orr, the organization's chief executive officer.

"I think truly a child will develop at their fullest potential when they have a positive female and positive male role model, and unfortunately that's not always present," Orr said. "So Big Brothers Big Sisters can help fill these gaps that kids are growing up with.

Bob Sabine decided to start volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters in August.

"It took a few months to go through the paperwork," Sabine said.

Sabine is paired with an 11-year-old Millersburg boy with two brothers, a sister and a single mother.

"They are limited as to what they can do," Sabine said.

Since being paired, the boy spends his time on Sabine's farm south of Millersburg. He came with a list of things he wanted to learn how to do; so far, he can cross one off. Sabine said they are working on the rest.

"He wanted to shoot a gun and we did target practice. He still wants to go hunting," Sabine said. "It's neat to see him experience stuff for the first time. ... He's become part of our home."

It was a radio advertisement that convinced Sabine to get involved.

"I grew up in a family atmosphere somewhat similar," Sabine said. "A lot of these kids grew up in town, living in town and not getting to experience certain things."

During the Holmes County Fair last year, he heard 11 kids needed Big Brothers or Sisters.

Reuben Miller volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters because of his great-uncle.

"I got to thinking if someone did not make a difference in my life, where would I have been," Miller said.

Miller's great-uncle studied psychology and taught Miller about human behavior, fostering a friendship and Miller's interest in psychology.

"Relationships are extremely important to me," Miller said.

It was more than six years ago when Miller made his call to Big Brothers Big Sisters. Today, Miller's "little" is 17.

"He picks up things I never taught him just by watching," Miller said. "Kids watch your life and watch everything so you have to live well to be a good role model."

Over the years, the pair has tried fishing together, but "kids' attention spans are kind of short," Miller said.

Instead, they go out to lunch and spend much of their time just talking. Miller recalled the boy's 16th birthday party.

"To just be there and meet his friends and the look on his face when I gave him a bicycle," Miller said. "In our community, there's not a lot of crime, there's not a lot of drugs, per se, as a big city; but there are kids that still need someone to reach out."

Orr agreed.

"As the times are getting tougher for our families with gas prices and grocery prices, the number of children enrolled in our program increases," Orr said. "Every day we get children. Our list is up to 101, which is the most it's been in seven years."

But the number of volunteers actually is dropping and the majority of the children on the organization's waiting list are boys.

"It's only four hours a month you give to a kid," Orr said. "We are all busy in life, but we're never too busy to change the life of a child."

On a recent Thanksgiving, the Frames had an extra special guest at the table. It was a child they worked with 25 years ago and spent five years with, Kandy Frame said. She came from Michigan "to try and find us just to let us know she's doing good," she added.

It took the woman five years to track down the Frames, but when she finally did, she took her seat at the dining room table at Cottage 4.

For the kids at the home, something as simple as eating dinner at a table together without a television is new, said Kandy Frame. So it only makes sense so many would come back home to eat Thanksgiving around the kitchen table where they had their first ever "family meal."

"I think that young people always want a place to call home," Dorn Frame said. "And I think that's what we give them."

Reporter Katy Ganz can be reached at 330-674-1811 or e-mail kganz@the-daily-record.com.