Washington D.C., Mar 26, 2020 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Despite the closure of churches and lockdowns in place in many areas of the United States due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, many social service agencies are ramping up their efforts to feed the poor, while at the same time taking unprecedented precautions to avoid getting their guests sick.
“The neighbors are mostly just thankful that we have not shut down. Many, many pantries have shut down,” Sister Stephanie Baliga of the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels in Chicago told CNA.
“In good news, most of the pantries that are associated with either a Catholic or Protestant church have not shut down.”
The Mission normally serves around 1,000 families a month, and each month processes around 70,000 pounds of food. The food pantry is set up like a grocery store to allow guests to “shop” for the items they need.
Now, to reduce the potential for contamination, the Mission has switched to a bag-based to-go pantry, distributed outside.
Sister Stephanie said they served 260 families last Tuesday, with the local police delivering boxed food to homebound seniors.
“We weren’t spending a lot of time talking to people, as you might guess. We were kind of just like: ‘Here’s your food, I wish we could spend time with you!’ It was kind of a very fast ‘Here’s your food, thanks be to God,'” Sister Stephanie laughed.
Sister Stephanie said her community is blessed to be able to continue to attend Mass and is praying for all those who cannot currently do so.
Volunteers harder to come by
Many food pantries depend on seniors as their most reliable volunteers. But since the eldery are more susceptible to COVID-19, most are staying home.
The Father McKenna Center, a Catholic day shelter for homeless men in Washington DC, normally acts as a drop in center for homeless men where they can get a meal, do laundry, and avail themselves of case management and other aid.
The center normally has 55 regularly scheduled volunteers from the community, but none are now able to come. Besides a small staff, a Jesuit Volunteer Corps volunteer and a Franciscan Missions volunteer are all who remain.
“This is not what they signed up for, but they’re jumping in,” Kim Cox, president of the center, told CNA.
Following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services, the FMC has had to suspend its case management and ask most of the men who come to the center to go elsewhere.
DC’s homeless shelters that house people at night have changed their hours to be open all day, so the homeless can remain there and shelter in place.
The only homeless men that are left at the McKenna Center are a group of ten men who sleep at the center during the hypothermia season, which is coming to a close as spring arrives.
“I think that this is actually a really good opportunity. These guys are more than happy to help us,” Cox said.
In addition to scrubbing and deep cleaning the center’s kitchen, the homeless men have been helping to make masks out of fabric to help stem the spread of COVID-19.
“And they felt good about that…these guys that are currently homeless, it really enhances their dignity for them to do something constructive.”
There are about 120 low-income seniors who live within five blocks of the center, Cox said. The homeless men in the hypothermia program are helping to bag groceries to distribute to the center’s neighbors.
The Capital Area Food Bank asked the McKenna Center to ramp up its food distribution by becoming a community hub, handing pre-made bags of groceries to DC residents who show up, with appropriate precautions taken for social distancing.
“To prepare the first 100 bags of groceries…the men in our hypothermia program helped make that happen,” Cox said.
“They helped to bag the groceries and move them where we need them…it’s terrific that they have this desire to help other people, and that we have this opportunity to give them something to do.”
“We’ve ramped up our services tremendously”
Walter Ritz, director of HOPE Community Services in New Rochelle, New York, told CNA that the center typically runs a soup kitchen, almost five days a week, and food pantry open every other week.
That was until New Rochelle became a relatively early epicenter of the virus in the United States. Most churches in the area had to suspend services nearly three weeks ago when Governor Andrew Cuomo on March 10 instituted a one-mile radius “containment zone” to try to stop the spread of the virus beyond a local synagogue.
Though the number of new COVID-19 cases has slowed since the restrictions were implemented, like in most parts of the country, places of worship— which typically provide many volunteers and donations for HOPE— remain shuttered.
“One of the biggest changes we’ve done is ramp up our services tenfold, in terms of our food pantry,” Ritz said.
“We went from serving every other week to serving three times a week so that people have much more opportunity to come to us in this time of great need….Food insecurity is a major concern, and it’s the last thing people need to be concerned about at this moment.”
Instead of operating the food pantry once a day, like usual, HOPE is now serving every weekday, because other soup kitchens in the area had to close down.
“We’ve ramped up our services tremendously…we’re fortunate to have the national guard here to help out, but it’s just been a tremendous change for us.”
The second drastic change has been doing everything outdoors. The pantry and the kitchen are both outside, serving in to-go containers.
“HOPE’s volunteer base has always been seniors. A large portion of our volunteers are seniors, and we made a call a while back when this started hitting New Rochelle that for the safety of our volunteers, we asked that anyone who was in the high-risk category, for their own safety, not to come into HOPE,” Ritz said.
“So that, right off the bat, reduced our ability to have as much help as we normally do. Even our pantry manager, who typically coordinates how our pantry restocks and goes out, we haven’t been able to have her in. So this has all been done with a skeleton crew here, and we’re certainly feeling the pinch. It’s been very difficult to support the community, but we are still committed to doing it for as long as we can.”
“We certainly don’t have enough to sustain the level of giving that we have been doing. And we feel that we are going to have to ramp it down very shortly,”
At this time, what HOPE needs most are donations, Ritz said. One major impact on their organization— and on other nonprofits— is that their annual gala, which is a major fundraiser for them each year, has been pushed back to October.
“It’s cost us a fairly dependable revenue stream that we’ve always been able to utilize during the spring and summer,” Ritz said.
“We are working more, with less, at the moment. We’re committed to our community, and again, we are going to be here as long as we can.”
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Sounds weird to say the least.
Probably diabolical in nature.
I wonder what awful thing this priest did to upset the students? The lack of detail makes it seem like it was pretty horrible. I hope the students really are safe.
More likely the students were doing something to the relic. I know Fr. Carlos. This is a witch hunt.
This CNA article is a perfect example of sensationalist journalism and is unworthy of CWR. The piece reports scandal, an “incident” but provides absolutely no detail. Add to that, an unsubstantiated name was dropped followed by the temerity of stating that “This is a developing story.”
The author would have done better to let it develop some more. This piece reminds of a sewing circle of breathless, gossiping busybodies.
Joseph Meynier: my sentiments exactly. I’ve thought for a long time that CNS is not a reliable source of news and ought to be considered with a very critical eye.
Sorry, I meant to say CNA.
Thank you. This is the first time I can remember being disappointed in something CWR published, but someone was a definitely a bit too eager.
I’m a bit puzzled by the responses here. It’s a straight-up news report. There is no sensationalism, no editorializing, no claims made. Just facts. This did happen and it is, as the CNA note states, a developing story.
What was printed was all the information that the diocese made available. It would have been so easy (and fair-minded) for them to have specified that the incident was not of a sexual nature. But they didn’t and now the priest’s reputation is harmed and Joliet Catholics are deprived of the chance to honor the relic.
Agreed. Lack of essential detail. Therefore,not newsworthy
I hope that when the details of the case are known, you will update this article, so we can know the exact nature of the allegations against the unnamed priest, and the identity of the individual.
The accusations are false against fr martins…thevtruthvwill come out…he is being attacked by Satan for his work exposing satan….beware of jumping to false conclusions….
I attended the display when it came through our parish. Nothing weird happened here. I really enjoyed it.
I would suggest, if it turns out that this priest did nothing illegal or immoral according to Church teaching and if his reputation was damaged by the action taken by the diocese of Joliet and its bishop, that he ought to then sue the latter for damages.
Relic priest responds to ‘incident’ allegation
THE PILLAR
November 25, 2024 . 2:51 PM 5 min read
Apparently, this priest is alleged to have handled the long hair of a girl attending the relic presentation in order to illustrate a point. Probably unwise but hardly an illegal “assault” as alleged nor a violation of morality. As a comparison, I’m sure we can all recall photos of Pope Francis in all sorts of fatherly embraces of young children yet no one lodges a single complaint about it.
Those were my thoughts too, Deacon Edward.
A recent update by the Pillar has more details as indicated earlier. As the saying goes someone seems to have made a mountain out of a molehill. In this case, a priest making note of his bald head and a girls hair to some students to engage them in a discussion. If the Pillar latest account holds true as of this writing, which I hope it is, then the person making a report to the police should be admonished and should publically issue an apology to the priest. Also think if the Pillar up date is true then I think the Father making a report to the police has his own issues leading to this situation. Think CWR should also do an update when final facts are known.
Grabbintg anyone’s hair for any reason, without their consent is certainly immoral.
And I would lock up Francis and throw away the key for hundreds of things he has done.
No idea how you can define this as immoral?
As usual, this is turning out to be a witch hunt brought on by a hyper-conscious parent and the regular group of ninnies that try to make every good priest a villain. Fr. Martins did nothing wrong. See the latest:
https://www.ncregister.com/cna/illinois-diocese-halts-st-jude-relic-tour-amid-incident-involving-priest-students
Waiting for the pastor of the church and the bishop of Joliet to restore Father Martins’ reputation.
Unfortunately, Daniel Payne left out significant details in his article about the allegations against Fr. Martins. In front of over 200 people, as
Fr. Martins joked about his baldness he touched a teen’s hair. The girl’s father complained of assault. This ridiculous act against Fr. Martins may be an example of how Satan attacks the highly faithful. Fr. Martins is a well-known exorcist. Remember how Fr. Pio was also attacked with false charges. In this case, numerous witnesses shared that nothing inappropriate happened.
After reading the additional information in the Pillar, I think this is all diabolical. Fr. Martins is an accomplished exorcist. The evil one hates him.
How devastating this must be for him. Yet, he’ll come through it.
And I agree the Bishop over reacted as did the parent.