It’s all about love, and it starts with us

The people asking for help are not always cooperative, or present themselves as someone a person would want to help. They can be hostile, angry, high, belligerent, arrogant and confrontational from mental illness, drug use or circumstances — or any combination of those three. In order to help someone, O’Connor explained, they need to be calmed down before they walk into any agency.

All sorts of help

While the soup kitchen was winding down, a highly agitated man with wild, bloodshot eyes blew in and started yelling at O’Connor within moments, first explaining that he and his wife have been homeless for two nights and lost their son, and insisted that they be placed together in housing. The more he explained, the more agitated and confrontational he became by getting close to O’Connor’s face, cursing and raising his voice louder and louder while demanding help and services, adding that they required a place to hide at night from the police. O’Connor stood, unflappable, and calmly explained a few options as the man left him with his cell phone number.  His young wife waited outside the doorway holding a cheap garbage bag, stretched thin with the couple’s personal items.

Kelley triages pastoral care every day. A woman dragged Kelley outside to check out her new puppy. “Cute!” Kelley praised. “I see you’ve got a pit bull on your hands. You’re going to need to contact Meryl [Borenstein] from the Armadillo restaurant who runs a pit bull training program, and she will help you get your dog spayed and shots too. You want your dog to be safe and healthy.”

“Pastor Kelley, you gotta help me,” begged an older man. “I am trying to stay clean and sober, and I don’t have anywhere I can stay.” Kelley made arrangements to deliver him to his caseworker to help. “I haven’t seen you on Sundays for a while,” she says to one woman while hugging. “Please stop by so we can talk about what’s going on with you.”

Food for the soup kitchen and pantry is typically donated by Hannaford, which daily donates meat ready to expire and older fruits and vegetables mixed into cardboard boxes. Five people volunteer in the kitchen, mostly from alternative sentencing or post-incarceration programs. Longtime soup kitchen volunteer Randy Montgomery explained that the end of the month is their busiest as people’s food benefits run low or empty. “A lot of people forget what it takes to live,” said Montgomery, “and they just aren’t ready. A lot of alcoholics and addicts come here. If it wasn’t for Pastor Kelley, I don’t know what they would do.”