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Every Saturday morning, my husband Jim and I are privileged to feedSanford’s homeless, a program aptly called: Grace and Grits. The kitchen buzzesas the bacon sizzles and scrambled eggs are drained from huge frying pans.Pancakes, grits, and sausages fill the menu. No restaurant does it better. After breakfast is prepared and before welcoming our guests, we gather in acircle. We offer thanks for this gift of serving these less fortunate among us. Althoof varied faith beliefs, when it comes to this kind of faith giving, we are strictly,beautifully one. Then we fill their hour with some spiritual as well as bodily nourishment Iplay the church piano. When the doors swing open and our guests come tumblingin, I belt out the old folk tune,When the Saints Go Marching In. The staff claps, a few sing along as our guests take their places in the food line.Father Bob offers grace before plate after plate is piled high with our morning fixins. It’s all joy &privilege to be with these sometimes lonely souls. You need to know that I have special affinity for the homeless. Fourteenyears ago I married a formerly productive, suddenly penniless man himself.Following a breakdown, Jim came to question if he had ever been the money making kind. But what Jim had money couldn’t buy and marrying Jim was the best thingI ever did. He never ceases to remind me all it takes is one person to risk making the difference; how in our case he credits me with taking that risk to make adifference in his life. I credit God. As for these now-destitute, Jim counsels: “Let’s beware of any drive forefficiency in our morning scramble. When these bent and unkempt souls pour intothe hall, let’s make contact with each one, eye-to-eye, and heart-to-heart. We never know who we’re meeting. Besides, in my penniless time, that’s what I wantedmost. Good God, even a ‘good morning’ would do!” I draw meaning from these folks-on-the-margins. I watch that young AfricanAmerican mother walk ahead a slew of children trailing her, holding up theirplates, eyes wide with expectation. I feel for the disheveled, bearded young guywho keeps his eyes lowered, the old wrinkled-faced woman whose hand shakes so much my hands are needed to carry her coffee to her place. These are busysurvivors in a world grown harsh and uninviting. Our fleeting connections areloaded with silent questions like “What happened to you?” “How on earth did you wind up here?” Hopefully, one by one they’ll tough it out, as my husband didyears ago, until one day they, too, will recover a measure of safe life. Sanford, like other American cities, walks a tightrope between practicingcompassion and keeping itself “presentable.” Still, much too often, faceless onesare advised to vacate park benches open to everyone else. We hope that some day we can offer these friends a hoped-for shower, lavatory, or locker to store their fewpossessions. Feeding the homeless brings me face to face to what really matters: I’mpart of their humanity. If I don’t participate somehow in their lives, can I be really human myself? There is always hope. Not too long ago, the founder of Grace & Grits got a $700check from a formerly homeless man who wrote. “You fed me every Saturday! Take this and feed others.” If you found this helpful send it to a friend or you can use one of these to spread the word.
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