Feeding the hungry: Dedicated volunteers help those in need at food program

BY BILL DOYLE | CFP CORRESPONDENT
 
When I arrived at 6:15 a.m. to volunteer for the first time at the St. John’s Food for the Poor program on a recent Thursday, even though it was only 19 degrees, a long line of hungry people was already outside the St. Francis Xavier Center next to St. John’s Church on Temple Street in Worcester waiting for the program to open at 6:30.

I didn’t know any of the other volunteers, but I walked through an open door and into the kitchen and announced that I was a member of the Knights of Columbus at Christ the King Parish and I wanted to help out. I was welcomed warmly and told to pick out an apron. Then I joined my fellow Knight, Ed Burke, who had arrived a few minutes before me, as he always does when we open the doors for parishioners at Christ the King as greeters before the 9 a.m. Mass each Sunday.

We spent the next three hours filling trays of paper and plastic foam plates with free hot food that was prepared by other volunteers and placing the trays on a nearby counter for the hungry to eat. Despite working with food all morning, I never got hungry. I wasn’t there to eat. I was there to help feed the hungry and St. John’s does a lot of that.

St. John’s prepares an average of 400 servings an hour for three hours each weekday morning. That adds up to 6,000 servings per week. Some people take more than one serving, especially when it comes to sandwiches which volunteers wrap in cellophane upon request.

The St. John’s Food for the Poor program is open for free meals from 6:30-9:30 a.m. Monday through Friday at the St. Francis Xavier Center.

Cheryl Letson, 59, of Auburn has volunteered three or four days a week for six years.

The retired science teacher at Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School is one of the cooks at St. John’s and she also organizes other volunteers who help prepare the food.

“I really want to give back, that’s the whole reason,” she said.
“I spent the better part of my earlier life,” she said, “working and making money for me and now I have the chance, I have the time, I have the ability, and God asks us to help feed the needy, feed the hungry, and this is what I’m doing.”

Mrs. Letson is a parishioner at St. Ann Parish in North Oxford. A couple of her sons have helped at St. John’s and her daughter volunteers at a food pantry in Albany, New York.

Mrs. Letson said the volunteers pass no judgment on the people they feed.
“We have a lot of people with a lot of different stories here,” Mrs. Letson said. “There are some who are just down on their luck and they need to get food somewhere. They found out about this place and it’s really a blessing for them. There are other people who have drug addictions or alcohol addictions and they’re going through a rough time right now. I’m hoping they get out of it. And then there are others who have mental illness. They’ll get a job for a little while and then you’ll hear that they don’t have that job anymore. We’re kind of like supplementing them.”

Mrs. Letson said some people have been coming to St. John’s for food since she started volunteering there. She said she sees some people more than once a week and those people tend to help keep the peace among the clients.
About a dozen people, including students from the College of the Holy Cross and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, volunteer each day.

“We couldn’t run this place without them,” she said of the volunteers. “They just want to help. They just want to do something good for somebody else. That’s what most of them want to do.”

At 8 a.m. on the day I was there, the volunteers joined the people gathered in the dining room and Mrs. Letson led everyone in prayer.

“We are a Catholic institution, and we need to make sure that that’s part of our identity,” she said. “For a little while, we were just doing all the cooking and we weren’t praying with everybody. So, it’s our way of bringing Christ to everybody here.”

 Father John F. Madden, pastor at St. John Parish, used to lead the prayers, but his busy schedule prevented him from coming every day. So, the volunteers lead the prayers now.

“You should have seen their eyes light up when Father Madden was here,” Mrs. Letson said. “I’m no Father Madden. No one is, but we’ve tried to incorporate something that makes them feel that God’s speaking to them and he loves them and he’s right there walking alongside them.”

 Paul Lamoureux, 64, of Worcester is in his third year as a volunteer in the kitchen cooking and prepping food.

He’s one of the kindest, mellowest men I know down here,” said a fellow volunteer who didn’t want his name published. “He shows respect to all of us out here. Good guy.”

After he retired, Mr. Lamoureux took care of his father for a couple of years until he passed away and then he looked for something to do. A friend volunteered at St. John’s so Mr. Lamoureux decided to give it a try and he’s been coming back ever since, usually five days a week.

“Obviously, there’s some reward in day after day doing the amount of work, feeding the number of people that we feed,” he said.

“You really don’t understand the number of homeless that we have in the community,” he said. “They’re not all homeless, but the number of people who come in that are either on hard times or substance abuse or mental health or whatever. They can come in here in the morning. They can get a nice meal. In the winter, they can get warmed up.”

In addition to the meals prepared by St. John’s Food for the Poor, groceries are available at a food pantry in the front of the building on a first come, first served basis.

Mr. Lamoureux said when he arrives at 5:45 a.m., from five to 20 hungry people are waiting outside for the center to open.

“I’m usually up at 4:30, a quarter to 5,” Mr. Lamoureux said, “and I shame myself into coming when it’s freezing because I wouldn’t mind just laying in bed and staying warm.”

He said the work of the volunteers sometimes resembles controlled chaos, but everything works out.

“If they weren’t committed to what we do here,” Mr. Lamoureux said, “I wouldn’t come every day. It’s a fantastic crew. People are here for the right reason. I have never seen an argument or a fight. It’s just a great program and everybody gets along. Everybody knows their roles. Everybody gets assigned something to do each day and you do it. It just works.”

On the Thursday that I volunteered, the volunteers made sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches, French toast casserole, sticky buns, hundreds of cold-cut sandwiches, 30 pizzas, 50 meatball and cheese subs, pasta with hamburg, salmon casserole made with leftover salmon burgers from the day before, garlic bread, eggs and homefries.

A lot of the food is donated from Stop & Shop, Chick-fil-A and other organizations.

Every weekday morning St. John’s also prepares breakfast for 60 people at the shelter that opened this winter at the former Registry of Motor Vehicles in downtown Worcester.

 When I mentioned that serving meatball subs at 7 a.m. seemed way too early in the day to be eating such food, another volunteer, Reese Ricciardi, pointed out to me that some of the hungry had been up all night so it didn’t feel like time for breakfast for them. After volunteering for a couple of hours, Ms. Ricciardi headed off to her job as a physician’s assistant where she helped more people.