Posted on 07/06/2007 9:51:18 AM PDT by Coleus
From the day he showed up at a convent with a few leftover fish beneath his arm to the days when he rummaged through grocery store Dumpsters in search of produce and baked goods, Barney Welch believed. He believed he could help feed the poor. He believed his charity would prosper even when he was no longer able to work at it 18 hours a day. He believed it would find a permanent home even as it bounced between temporary ones. "I've always believed in divine providence," Welch said. "And I've never been disappointed."
The charity Welch started a quarter-century ago with no assets except a battered pickup truck and a corner of the Middletown barn beneath the apartment where he lived now has a place to call its own -- a 50-by-70-foot steel building at the back of a school bus and taxi cab lot in Middletown. Known as the "Barn for the Poorest of the Poor," the group had a Mass to celebrate the opening of its new building this week. Many of the more than 100 regular volunteers attended. Nuns and priests from the religious orders whose soup kitchens and pantries benefit from the food the Barn collects were there, too. So was Welch.
The building -- which has shelves for storing donated food and an overhead door so trucks making pickups or deliveries can pull in out of the weather -- is a gift from John Murphy, the owner of Murphy Bus Service and Murphy Transportation. "I remember hearing a long time ago about how every evening Barney was going out in his beat- up old pickup truck and collecting food," Murphy said. "I lost track of him and then years later -- years and years later -- I heard he was still doing it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
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I'm not a Catholic. This has to be the best example of Charity in action I have ever come across.
Truly inspiring. Brought a few tears to my eyes.
thanks..
just as an fyi, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta started the Missionary of Charities religious order, it consists of over 4,500 nuns and is active in 133 countries.
http://www.motherteresacause.info/
http://www.motherteresa.org/
http://www.mcfathers.org/
http://www.corpuschristimovement.org/
http://web.tiscali.it/mcbroscontemplative/
http://laymc.bizland.com/
Wow.
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