wfn.org | `There but for the grace of God go

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

November 13, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-2005
`There but for the grace of God go I'

Holy Apostles Soup kitchen marks 15 years of service

by Michael Barwell
       (ENS) "I look around this room and say to myself, `There but for
the grace of God go I,'" Jimmy Novack says, huddled next to a space
heater in the doorway of Holy Apostles Church on Ninth Avenue in New
York City.
       On a brisk October morning, Novack is there to help welcome his
daily "guests" and serve 1,240 meals at Holy Apostle's Soup Kitchen,
the largest feeding program for hungry people in the Episcopal Church
and in New York City.
       Novack, 80, has seen most of the 3.5 million meals served here
since the program opened 15 years ago.
       "I have a hard time talking about it after all these years," he says,
shifting uncomfortably in his chair. "I get too emotional."
       "I stood in bread and soup lines during the Depression," he says,
noting he arrived in the United States from his native Poland on October
4, 1929. "I always said to myself, `I only hope that some day I can pay
this back.' I don't have a lot of money, and I could never afford to pay
back what I was given, but I do have time, and time is what I give."
       Novack had retired "for about three weeks" from the data center
of Consolidated Edison in 1982 when he landed at the soup kitchen
offering to help out. Having served 14 years in the U.S. Navy as a cook
in World War II and the Korean Conflict, he felt he could do something
useful, he said.

More are hungry
       Over the years he has noticed some changes in the Soup Kitchen.
       "The numbers are getting larger," he adds, shaking his head as
some of the men drift out after a meal of hot stew. "What frightens me is
the drop in the median age. They are now in their 30s and 40s, not the
50s, 60s and 70s we used to see every day. Being young, they are a bit
more rowdy. There's something about being on the street--the longer you
are there the harder it is to get off."
       Clyde Kuemmerle, who helps coordinate nearly 1,000 Soup
Kitchen volunteers, agrees with Novack's analysis.
       "When the welfare laws changed last year, we saw an incredible
jump in the number of people needing help," Kuemmerle says. "And the
clock is ticking. When some of the laws and programs change a year and
half from now, we'll see an explosion of needy people," he warns. 
       The previous evening a hundred guests, including political and
religious leaders, honored the Soup Kitchen's 15-year milestone with
praise for its ministry, as well as expressions of outrage and shame for
the continuing need for the Soup Kitchen's services.
       Ruth Messinger, a candidate for mayor of New York City and a
long-time supporter of the Soup Kitchen, pointed around the brightly lit
nave of the recently restored church where both soup and worship happen
and said, "The luminescence in this room comes from the love of God
and the acts of charity that happen here every day."
       But Messinger said it was shameful that "in the richest city in the
richest country in the world there are people starving because they don't
have any food. What happens here makes this a truly holy place--they not
only feed the hungry, they feed the soul. A miracle occurs here very
day.
       "What does it say about our city that more and more people are
hungry--many of them children?" Messinger asked." We turn away
75,000 people, 45,000 of them children, from our soup kitchens because
we run out of food. We must dedicate ourselves to eradicating hunger
from our city."

A `complete tragedy'
       Messinger's theme was echoed throughout the evening as
politicians and church leaders congratulated the program, but chastised
government and business for not caring about all people.    
       New York City Councilman Thomas Duane, who volunteers on
the soup line, said, "It is a complete tragedy that so many New Yorkers
need to come to a soup kitchen to eat. It is a tragedy that we are being
asked to spend millions of dollars on a new baseball stadium a few
blocks from here when we need affordable housing. Holy Apostles
provides incredible nourishment both physically and spiritually," he said.
       It has not been an easy task. What started as a neighborhood soup
kitchen serving a few homeless people living in a small park across the
street in October 1982 has mushroomed into a magnet for nearly 1,300
people a day. By the end of the first year, Holy Apostles was feeding
389 people five days a week. 
       The program, and the parish, boomed. 
       "Before the Soup Kitchen, Holy Apostles itself was a hopeless
place, waiting to die," says the Rev. William A. Greenlaw, rector of the
parish and executive director of the Soup Kitchen. "It was marginal,
slated for closing by the diocese."
       By responding to the needs of the community "we have been
given back our life," Greenlaw says--as well as responsibility for
securing and managing a $1.7 million annual budget for the Soup Kitchen
alone.
       A devastating fire in 1990 destroyed the main church building.
"We never missed a beat," Greenlaw says, noting they served 242,634
meals that year. "The kitchen was open the next day, with emergency
power supplies from ConEd and hot coffee from the Salvation Army."
       Rebuilding continues seven years later, but with an open, well-
lighted nave in which the thousand-plus meals are served every weekday
and where a "very diverse" congregation worships on Sundays, Greenlaw
says.

`Expectations surrounded by brick'
        "It's astounding," said Kent Barwick, president of the New York
State Historical Association who helped with the restoration of the
historic building. Holy Apostles is "a building of expectations surrounded
by brick. It is a place that didn't forget where people's lives touch."
       During the dedication of the last stained glass window in the
restored church, which honors the Soup Kitchen and the volunteers and
workers who rebuilt the structure, Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam of
New York said, "We are messengers of God to each other. There is a
holiness to this place because the feeding of God's children happens
here." Roskam knows first-hand about feeding God's children--she served
her first four years as a priest operating the Soup Kitchen in the mid-
1980s.
       Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning agreed. "I feel a sense of
real holiness in this place," Browning said to the group. "At the
beginning of my term as presiding bishop I was asked what I hoped the
Episcopal Church would become by the end of my term, and I answered,
`a church which could be more compassionate and inclusive.' This
church truly is inclusive and compassionate."

Another day, another meal
       Two days later, Jimmy Novack packs up to go home. He's been
there for six hours. He's tired and he aches. He faces surgery later in the
week and may not be back for some time. Grabbing his ever-present
cane, he walks through the hall, nodding to volunteers and guests here
and there, pausing at the front of the new window, which is ready to be
installed.
       "I knew Cliff Weihman," he says, his eyes drifting away to
remember the volunteer in whose memory the window was given. He
plops down in a nearby chair, where another volunteer rushes over to
retie his shoes. "I love this place!" he says with a smile.
       Novack makes his way to the serving line, where volunteers eat
the day's leftovers after the guests have gone. Piling his plate with
chicken wings, rice, and an assortment of vegetables, he takes his place
at the head of the table, next to the retired publisher of one of New
York's major publishing houses.
       Novack easily banters with millionaires and homeless alike,
Kuemmerle confides from a corner of the room. Volunteers like Novack
range from three Roman Catholic women from Queens who come by
subway every Tuesday, to one volunteer from Connecticut who has her
chauffeur park her limousine around the corner so she doesn't appear
ostentatiously at the line in front of the church. "We take all comers,"
Kuemmerle says with a smile. 
       "I'm not a religious person," Novack confesses, putting on his
coat and confiding that he served on Holy Apostles' vestry for nine
years, but didn't like it very much. "I believe in God. I come to church.
I come back because I have no other place to go. But I love the people."

-- Michael Barwell is deputy director for news and information for the
Episcopal Church