Inside Report for Jan. 9, 2013

EBR hunger didn’t end with holidays

Even though the holidays are over, the missions of charities such as the Baton Rouge Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank never stop.

People, as a general rule, seem to be more charitable around the holidays.

There are always people who volunteer their time, service or money to assist charitable organizations year round, but there seems to be a huge uptick around the holidays.

Michael Acaldo, chief executive officer of the Baton Rouge Society of St. Vincent de Paul, said he had so many volunteers wanting to volunteer their time during Thanksgiving and Christmas, that he had to turn people away.

“Let’s say we would get about 100 calls from people wanting to volunteer during a two-to-three-day period around Christmas,” Acaldo said. “After Christmas, that number will drop to maybe 15 calls during the same time.”

Still, Acaldo said, St. Vincent de Paul has come a long way over the last 20 years when the normal volunteer drop after Christmas would sink to zero.

“It’s such a change now in this community. People always want to give back,” Acaldo said.

The St. Vincent de Paul Catholic charity serves two meals a day, 365 days a year at its Dining Hall, providing a much-needed service for the indigent in Baton Rouge.

Volunteers and employees at the group’s dining facility, off Florida Street, serve a hot daily lunch and prepare brown bag dinners to hand out at 3 p.m.

St. Vincent de Paul served 236,075 meals in 2012, according to preliminary data.

Volunteers can give their time by preparing and serving a home-cooked meal for the temporary residents of the group’s men shelters or the women and children’s shelter. Volunteers also can serve in one of the group’s thrift stores, sorting books, or at the main facility’s pharmacy.

Acaldo said volunteers can also spend their time reading to or sharing a craft with children at the group’s women and children’s shelter.

The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank is another local nonprofit targeting hunger in the community.

Kenissa McKay, public relations and special-event coordinator for the food bank, said her agency definitely saw an uptick in volunteers and donations during the holidays.

“It’s huge around the holidays,” McKay said.

She said they also see a drop in volunteers after the first of the year.

“The food bank operates like a three-legged stool: It’s food, funds and volunteers, and we always need all three,” McKay said.

The food bank fulfills a wide hunger need locally.

In 2012, the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank distributed 11.5 million pounds of food in its 11-parish service area (Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, St. James, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana), McKay said. That is the equivalent of more than 9.5 million meals. The numbers are record highs for the food bank, she said.

Volunteers can help sort food in the warehouse or help with administrative work.

Acaldo and McKay said there are opportunities year round to give back.

To volunteer or donate, contact St. Vincent de Paul at [phone] or the food bank at [phone].

Steven Ward is a general-assignment reporter at The Advocate. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Comments

1) Comment by twinkie1cat - 09/01/2013

rgeraldwallace: You show the typical attitude of conservatives prevalent since Bible times and one that Jesus fought against to the consternation of the religious right of his day, namely that homeless and handicapped people did something wrong to become that way. Most of America is within 6 months of homelessness were they to lose their jobs and with Jindal's persistence in increasing the unemployment rolls through the destruction of quality, dependable employment, through government and school systems, jobs it will increase. Divorce, spousal abuse, job loss are all strong contributors to homelessness. Greedy landlords who overcharge for ragged apartments and require large deposits or make up offensive rules such as "no pets" or "children cannot play outside" or "no gathering outside" also make affordable housing unaffordable to one's self esteem....... Oftentimes a homeless person will have a job but not be able to get up enough money for a place to live at one time because the job pays minimum wage or is prone to layoffs and cutting hours. And rooming houses which let one pay by the week are often dangerous or nasty. One friend of mine was bitten by bedbugs and another had all his property stolen while it was supposed to be secure in his room, including once while he was at church! Others discriminated because he was gay. Eventually, the person may just give up and become chronically homeless....... Homeless programs need to be more than feeding programs and provide more in terms of transitional housing and money to cover initial rents and deposits as well as helping suitable clients get into school so they qualify for jobs that pay a living wage and then support them through school with subsidized housing. But this will require a drastic decrease in the number of selfish conservatives controlling the money and demands that the funding be restored to the non-profits that the JIndal has cut. When you go around cutting funds to victims of domestic violence and mental health care for children as well as making plans to force the elderly and terminally ill into for-profit nursing homes, there is a revenue problem and a greediness problem, not a spending problem in Louisiana. And it can only be solved by the voters returning to the teachings of Jesus Christ and kicking the bums out. And I don't mean by that, the homeless people but the selfish conservatives running our government.

2) Comment by simbatigercat - 09/01/2013

Freloaders! Do you call somebody who sleeps in the woods on the ground a freeloader? How about a woman sleeping in her car whose baby is going hungry? Is she a freeloader? Freeloaders??? How about the guy who has a job but can't get enough money up at one time to get an apartment and the deposits or who doesn't make enough money to get an apartment? Statistics show that there is no place in America where a person can afford a two bedroom apartment on a minimum wage job. So what if he has a wife and kids to support? They won't let him take a one bedroom. Homelessness comes with its own particular set of problems and, unless you've been there you have no business calling homeless people freeloaders. And they are not all addicts, drunks, or mentally ill either.

3) Comment by [e-mail] - 09/01/2013

Give a hungry person a meal no matter how he got that way. Afterwards expect him to not abuse a helping hand. That's the view most people traditionally have held, but these days there is a whole hidden nation of freeloaders preying on the rest. Just go and look at a homeless shelter; they shoo the guys out after breakfast and they all make signs advertising themselves as homeless and panhandle a few blocks from the shelter.

4) Comment by simbatigercat - 09/01/2013

as a former homeless person i can tell you that it is not so easy to say that it must have been something you did!! this is what I have been told: you must have done something to bring it on yourself. bull!! its a complex chain of events! !... not every homeless person did it to themselves.