July 25, 2008

I imagine many of the children who came to Jesus for a blessing looked much like the children who come to Bosco Food Kitchen every day. Hot and sweaty, shoeless, wearing the same stained, shabby clothes day after day. Some are clearly underweight, others have been a few days from a bath. Many have experienced more grief in their young lives than we will ever know.

Matthew, whose mother died six years ago, never smiles. Samantha walks two miles every day to Bosco with her younger cousins, who she is helping her grandmother raise. A teen brings her baby sister in a torn up, tattered stroller. They have no water because broken pipes ran the bill past their mother’s minimum wages.

Bosco is a beacon of hope 365 days a year for the poor, tired hungry of all ages. As my eyes move across Bosco, I see many who are homeless, tossed by poor health, limited job skills and no transportation. Many of the working poor look old beyond their years, trying to make a living in a town with few jobs, decrepit housing and few options.

Many like Samuel, who comes in a wheelchair since diabetes cost him a leg, barely get by from day to day. At Bosco, Samuel and others find a faithful welcome and a home-cooked meal.

Elder Reuben James has been coming "every day since it opened." He lives alone in a rundown two-room shack by the railroad tracks that like many such rentals, has nothing more than a bed, sink, toilet and hotplate. There’s no kitchen. Reuben worked years on logging crews until his back gave out.

"It’s a good meal for a poor man," he said, slowly eating turkey gravy and rice. Like many elders, Mr. James takes his time eating, since he is missing teeth and seems to appreciate the company of others. “I don’t know what I’d eat if there was no Bosco. The people here are good to me."

Bosco is a welcoming beacon to Deandra Robertson and her four children, who come every day. Carrying her baby, Deandra is hot and tired from a morning laboring in sweltering heat at a local laundrymat. "I couldn’t believe it when my neighbor told me about this place," she said. “I didn’t think there’d be a place for my kids to get a meal in a small place like Selma. Now that my kids are out of school they miss lunch every day. I know they are hungry. I hate that I have to choose between buying gas for work or feeding my kids."

While she talked to me, her children, including nine-year-old identical twins, Jasmine and Jaquetta, quietly ate their rice, turkey and peas, then asked for seconds. Her boys suffer from asthma and use breathing machines, especially during these hot days. Her twins, born prematurely, still struggle with learning disabilities.

Deandra is looking for another place to rent because the neighbor’s children have been diagnosed with lead poisoning. “My landlord said if I didn’t like it, I could just leave. I don’t know what I’m going to do. At least with Bosco, my children won’t go hungry."

Every day, I must feed hundreds of hungry poor in Selma. In June we served 6,100 meals at Bosco. I must also fill hundreds of grocery bags with nutritious food for families and elders in isolated rural communities. It costs $529 a day to pay the bills that keep Bosco going; for $53 I can buy turkey meat for food bags for four families. The huge increase in gas costs for delivering food to our rural food pantries is another unexpected expense that has set us back.

Our cook Mary Gayle does a great job of stretching food dollars, like cutting baked turkey into gravy and serving it over rice. Nevertheless, food costs a lot more today than it did just six months ago—not just for the poor who are destitute, but also for the Missions. For over a year, shortages of nutritional food at the local Food Bank has meant we have to pay full grocery store prices for meat, vegetables and fruit needed for wholesome meals.

I am writing you because I have nowhere else to turn to put food on the table for hungry children, elders and the working poor. I need your help to meet the pressing demands of higher costs as we strive to follow Christ's command to feed the poor. Daily I pray for you, thanking God for your gifts that let the little children come without hindrance, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (Matt. 19:14)

Serving the Lord,

Father Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.