Cooking monthly for Lifebridge over 33 years

Posted by Judith Black on Mar 29, 2017
 
In a land of plenty you’d think, given the will, it would be easy to end hunger and homelessness. I have only one small vantage point on the issue and that is from the kitchen of the Crombie Street Mission, which became the Salem Mission, which became Lifebridge, in Salem, MA. For 33 years I have headed up the 4th Thursday night crew of cooks and servers, and from where I stand, it is complicated. Think of a funnel that draws folks with many kinds of challenges and pulls them all to the same place. When state mental hospitals and other state funded facilities closed, opting for ‘integration’ of their population, what actually happened was that most them were dumped on city streets. Helpless against their own demons or misfortunes, they become homeless and hungry. They are the mainstay of the shelter.
 
However, there are the folks that land on hard times:
  • A man whose home burnt to the ground and he lacked the resources to rebuild
  • A young fellow who was fired and has yet to find a job
  • A woman who who’d been a secretary for 23 years, became ill, was fired for missing too much time, her insurance ran out, her money ran out.
  • A single mother of 5 from Puerto Rico, who suffered with stomach problems all her life, but could not miss work for fear that her children would go hungry. Once they were grown and living in various places, a daughter arranged for her to come to Boston and be seen by ‘good’ doctors. She was eventually operated on. The physician took out the wrong part and she is disabled for life.
  • Endless numbers of folks who have jobs, but at the U.S. minimum wage cannot pay for their room or apt., and eat. They come to the mission for their meals.
Many of these folks move on to independent digs, but many are with us for the duration. Lifebridge is a safety net that tries to take the weight that an economically and socially unjust world throws at it. I do pathetically little, just cook a meal with friends once a month.
 
Written by Judith Black, Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor