Posted on 12/23/2005 12:12:02 PM PST by COBOL2Java
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- A Jesuit-run college in Baltimore has suspended a food program for the homeless after the city's health department informed student participants that they could not distribute sandwiches without a license.
Despite not having a license, which requires that hot and cold running water be available where the food is served, several students from Loyola College in Maryland have continued to give out sandwiches on their own outside St. Vincent de Paul Church in downtown Baltimore on Monday nights.
"We think the regulations are ridiculous," said Ashley Biggs, an 18-year-old sophomore and the student coordinator of the outreach program, called Care-A-Van. Biggs said students in the college program had been giving out food in a downtown parking lot when Baltimore City Health Department officials asked them to stop Nov. 14.
Four to six students have continued to distribute food at St. Vincent de Paul independent of the college program because "people still need to eat," she told The Catholic Review, newspaper of the Baltimore Archdiocese.
"Technically, it is illegal," Biggs added. "They could potentially give us a citation and a fine."
Mark Kelly, a Loyola spokesman, said the college's Center for Values and Service is in discussions with students and the health department to "come up with a working solution" that will allow the center's outreach program to resume.
One option is implementing a health department suggestion to get licensed and relocate to an area next to the Supermax prison in Baltimore. Another possibility is for the college to find a health-certified kitchen and alternative location, Kelly said.
Sister Catherine "Missy" Gugerty, a School Sister of Notre Dame who directs the Center for Values and Service, said she was thrilled that the students were continuing their outreach even though they no longer can do it through the college. "I can't think of a more impressive scenario," she said.
Sister Missy said the van outreach has become an "essential service." About 20 student volunteers participate, and approximately 50-75 people have been receiving ham and cheese sandwiches along with a drink every Monday and Tuesday.
The number of clients has increased dramatically since the program began 1991, she said.
Sister Missy said students are "gravely concerned" about the well-being of the people who have benefited from the outreach program. "The students really felt that if the people were not getting the sandwiches, the alternative is to pick food out of the trash cans," she said.
Melisa Lindamood, senior adviser on legislative affairs for the Baltimore City Health Department, said the city is enforcing regulations related to the licensing of food providers as a way of protecting the homeless. She said Baltimore has been recognized nationally for having the cleanest restaurants.
"We wanted to be able to say that any outdoor food provider is as safe as the Cheesecake Factory or any other restaurant," said Lindamood, who noted that licensing fees are waived for nonprofit groups such as Loyola's.
Lindamood said many homeless people have "compromised immune systems," and that licensing serves as "a check to make sure homeless persons are protected."
"These licenses are to make the food safer, not to stop distribution," she said.
When preparing food, Sister Missy said, students wear rubber gloves and place each sandwich in a sealed baggie. The food is refrigerated until it is distributed, she said.
Students are not eager to relocate their outreach to the site promoted by the health department, Sister Missy said. "The (homeless) people have told us they don't like to be there," she said. "It is dreary, and some of them have had interactions with the law and have spent time in some form of jail system and so it is really hard for them to be near there."
Biggs said she believes the city is trying to hide the homeless by moving the food program to the Supermax site. "Out of sight, out of mind," she said. "If people don't see the problem, then it doesn't exist."
In twelve step programs there's a term called 'enabling'. If you enable the alcoholic/drug addict/abuser/etc., then they continue to exhibit whatever bad behavior they do. If you stop enabling them, then thing change. Sometimes they get worse in the short term but usually get better in the long term.
I look upon this sandwich program as an enabling function. If the folks on the receiving end weren't getting them, perhaps they would change their life for the better of all.
JSL
President Reagan is nudging Jesus and saying, "See? I was right when I said the scariest sentence in the English language is, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.'"
Gee, bet this isn't related to malnutrition, is it?
Once more the Left show's it's humanity.
Honored (Pride is a sin) Christian-Americans, stand up!
The public payroll employees get confused about the difference between public service and being on a public payroll. When that happens, they find all sorts of reasons to force compliance because it is in the public (employee) interest.
An argument that can be leveled at just about any charity. Something smells.
Some people, on the other hand, remember Luke 6:38:
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you
Perhaps planning to suicide if things come to such a pass? Then he can tell God he never took charity off of anyone.
Could they work a deal with the church to do it in the church.
Perhaps planning to suicide if things come to such a pass? Then he can tell God he never took charity off of anyone.
Or as C. S. Lewis quipped in The Great Divorce he never took "BLEEDING CHARITY" off of anyone....
Wasn't it ironic that Scrooge's first name was Ebenezer. Means "stone of help" in the tongue of the Hebrews. For ole Scrooge he was his own stone of help and damned if he'd help anybody else, they were just bums.
Mmmmmm.. Rachel..
I see that you are a Godless atheist but God bless you all the same.
These people are serving the food NOT preparing it.
I don't think the college kids are right. When society has rules they need to abide by them. The reason for this is there have been too many cases of people suing for different reasons and the government gets sick of it and has rules to hopefully stop the suing.
yuppers, as the old book of Job showed, nobody is above the celestial skirmishes between Good and Evil.
this dude has saved for 2 years, ok let the market and circumstances conspire to render him jobless for 3.
or, let the brakes on his car go out without warning and he crashes into a limousine full of people, seriously maiming or killing a dozen.
or, let someone finger him (all very sweetly mistakenly, without malice) for a gruesome murder and he gets the ride to death row and back. God being merciful he ends up finally free, but the lawyers literally ate it all and the state legislature says sorry, it was a problem with the witness not our prosecutors, so it's your dime, you should have planned better.
or, well you get the picture.
which is why, the Lord's prayer says give us this day our daily bread. not our decadely bread or our century-ly bread.
I would think that in the regulation authorizing the bureaucrat to threaten the program, a definition of food service worker would quantify a lower limit of persons being served to meet the designation.
The article reads as though some college kids might buy a loaf of bread, a package of Oscar Meyer Balogna and individually wrapped Velveeta chees slices, slap some mustard/mayo on the bread and hand them out to whoever walks buy and in hungary in normally freezing weather.
One could probably also interpret weather conditions to eliminate the need for refrigeration, and simply use a packet of alcohol laden wet tissues to remain hygienic.
Requiring it where the food is prepared is reasonable, say, the church kitchen. Requiring hot & cold running water onsite to hand out prepackaged sandwiches isn't. They're trying to relocate the poor people to where the gentry won't have to see them.
Before I watch this video, let me guess that this will make me sicker than the unwashed-hands sandwiches.
You know, I have noticed that the more money we give to charity, the more we seem to have. Is it that we don't "need" as many things as we used to? Is it that we find better deals on the things we actually do need? There aren't any lottery winnings to account for it.
You think that verse could actually be...true?
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