NEW JERSEY: Carpenters lend skills to help keep church feeding ministry alive

By Sharon Sheridan, July 14, 2010 [Episcopal News Service] From the time he was a kid, Cuban immigrant Manny Ortega had a passion for carpentry. "Jesus was a carpenter, so that always had some kind of meaning to me," he recalled.

That passion eventually led him to become a council representative in Carpenters Union 155 – and to launch a project to help keep the doors open at a feeding program at St. John's Episcopal Church in his urban hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Since May, union volunteers have been working to upgrade a staircase in the 1895 portion of the church facility so it will meet local fire codes.

It all started with platters of food left over from union staff meetings in the regional council office. "Basically, most of it just ends up being wasted," Ortega said.

He started bringing the food to local churches with food ministries, including St. John's. Over time, he developed a relationship with the church's rector, the Rev. Joe Parrish, and learned about its construction needs. Ortega raised the issue with union members, "and a lot of members put up their hands – 'Yeah, we'll go give a hand,'" he said. "A lot of them are out of work, so they know what hardship's like. They just wanted to help."

That help has amounted to $20,000 to $30,000 of donated labor, Parrish told ENS in early July. "They've got it probably 95 percent finished now. … It's spectacular, when you look at where we were and where we are now."

The church complex includes three buildings, constructed between 1860 and 1926 and now connected, Parrish explained. "We had a three-story staircase that was open, like the grand Colonial staircases in the old days."

The church secured a $5,000 grant that covered most of the cost of materials for the project, which involved installing fire-retardant walls and fire-resistant doors that isolated each floor, the rector said. "Our architect for the job, his name is Jesus. So it's Jesus and the carpenters; go figure."

None of the carpenters attend St. John's, Parrish said.

"I did it because my father raised me to be that way. If somebody needs your help and you can help them, you do your best to do it," said Ron Hazen, who helped oversee the project as head of the local union's volunteer organization committee. "It's nice to give back to the community."

"It's kind of like an image builder for us," he added.

About 10 carpenters worked on the project on and off, he said. Carpenters going through their apprentice training received credit toward their required school hours for volunteering.

"They've done a wonderful job – way beyond the call of duty, as they say," Parrish said.

More to do
The carpenters' donation of labor proved invaluable for a church where, the rector said, an estimated $66,000 in pledges only covers one-third of the annual budget, where worshipers attend services in a parish-hall sanctuary rather than pay to heat the 750-seat church and where the congregation sold three of its Tiffany windows for $500,000 last year to keep its doors open.

Once the staircase is finished, the church still needs to replace a set of large wooden doors that swing in the wrong direction and to upgrade the kitchen, Parrish said.

Currently, feeding-ministry volunteers are permitted to use only the microwave in food preparation and must rely on purchased or donated food to serve 50 to 120 guests, depending on the week. Many of the guests receive social-service assistance, so increasing numbers visit the feeding ministry toward the end of the month as their money runs out, Parrish said.

The church is seeking grants for the additional work and has spoken with the carpenters about tackling the doors, although the union hasn't decided yet whether to approve doing the additional project, Parrish said.

The feeding ministry operates each Sunday afternoon and grew out of the parish's Alpha program in 1998. A Christian formation program, Alpha typically includes a Bible study followed by a meal, Parrish explained. "We made it into Alpha followed by Vespers. Then after Vespers, everybody has lunch."

Those eating the lunch are expected to worship first. "We're kind of rigid that you have to go to the church service," Parrish said. "This has become what we call our 'seekers service, Episcopal-style.'"

About a third of those eating at the church are addicted to alcohol, drugs or both, he estimated. "Some of them actually turned their life around by coming to the service."

He recalled encountering a 20-something former homeless addict, who had attended the services and lunches, at Newark Airport, where he'd secured a job at a car-rental company. "We recovered an entire life," Parrish said.

Unlike another nearby church, which employed a police officer after knife fights broke out at its soup kitchen, St. John's "employs" a host of children and teens as well as adults from two other Episcopal churches as volunteer food preparers and servers two Sundays a month.

"We call it Sandwich Sunday," said JoAnn Lehmkuhl of Trinity Church, Cranford, who volunteers with husband Albert. On third Sundays, 30 to 40 parishioners prepare 250 sandwiches after services, which they deliver and serve along with hard-boiled eggs, pasta salads, fresh fruit and desserts.

"It's sort of been a ministry of lots of ages," she said. "Even some of the 8- and 9-year-olds have participated."

At St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Westfield, the entire church school helps prepare a hot meal that the youth and adults serve on fourth Sundays.

"We call it our Mission Kitchen," said Gwen Howard, director of children's religious education. "My thought was to teach the children now to give to others and start at a young age."

As many as 60 youngsters as young as 2 tackle everything from chopping veggies and preparing biscuits and baked chicken to decorating placemats. The middle and high school students "absolutely love doing it," she noted. "These are kids who, it's the only time they show up for church."

She hopes to instill the life lesson that it doesn't matter what religion someone belongs to; "we can teach our children to give to all," she said. "I also believe, doing hands-on, it gives a much stronger lesson than just hearing us telling the story out of the Bible."

"It brings camaraderie for them inside the church," she added. "My goal is to teach them that, by doing things and having fun, they realize church is not just a chore."

Howard said she was thrilled to see the carpenters' work at St. John's.

"That's the kind of lesson I want our kids to learn," she said: that it doesn't matter which denomination someone belongs to, "there are people of all denominations in need."

"I think it's really, really great that these men, these carpenters, are doing that," she concluded. "That, to me, is a true sense of Christianity."

-- Sharon Sheridan is an ENS correspondent.