Eyes opened during food deliveries (Courier Journal) 2-21-88COURIER JOURNAL, Sunday, February 21, 1988, B1
•
niniunit.
. ....
....................
.
..
............. .............................. .........................
..
.... .....
........ .... Helping the Hungry...... ..........:.. ..X.......... ...:... ..:.... ...:... ...:...
..
.:..
: ....... .....-...
......
....................
.. .* .........
. : ............
.......
. .......
JACKIE WARTERS/,Courier Journal
OK, hurry with the picture -taking, we've got a good deed to do. an A,-herton president of the Jonathan's Landing Ladies Golf -
So say these volunteers with Help The .Hungry at Home in one of ing Association 18-holers; Al Imle; the Rev. David Thomas; and
their recent Saturda-y morning house-to-house stops. From left, Mary Imle with grateful recipients.
Two worlds Ir".1te-et
E* es o ened d ring fvud deliveri %0
One recent Saturday I headed for
Jonathan's Landing, arriving at
8:461/2 a.m., just one -and -a -half min-
utes later than Mary Imle had told
me was tee -off — a tee time that was
going to be different from most
golf ers' get-togethers.
Mary and Al Imle had arranged
this event and we weren't taking golf
clubs, weren't even going to see a golf
course unless we looked for it from
the Imle neighborhood. This was no
game we were playing that wonder-
ful but sad Saturday several weeks
ago. 0
When I arrived, instead of hoisting
golf bags onto privately owned carts,
the golfers were straining their backs
with boxes full of groceries. The
troops assembled were members of
the Ladies Golf Association of T o-na-
than's — less Al and one other man
who was a preacher. Present were
Jean Atherton, president of the 18-
holers; Elinor McManus; Eliza -beth
Wiggins; Sandra Downham, president
of the nine-holers; and Gloria Ward.
There was one other gal., Stephanie
Hornback, who came along for the
ride and brought her van to prove it.
These golfers were volunteering
for door-to-door delivery of food to
neighborhoods that were in direct
contrast to our own, and many of us
were going to be in shock at the deg-
radation we would encounter even
though we might have expected it.
About three Christmases ago, this
women's group decided not to give
each other presents, and I think Mary
might have given them the idea. In-
stead, they took what they would
have spent and put it into one little
bundle for Help the Hungry at Home,
which is what this gathering was all
about.
into our caravan — a station wag-
on and Stephanie's van for the big
boxes and several cars for more peo-
ple — we bounced across town and
came upon. sights we didn't like see-
ing, and admitted it, such as people
who don't seem to give a tinker's
damn how filthy life becomes. Then
we'd back off those thoughts and
corne to grips with the helpless, the
caring ones who live among the sloth-
ful.
C We'd been led to these people part-
ly through a woman named Ida Turn-
er, who seems to be on top of the
world. She is a woman who helped
rear a half dozen children of her own,
and even sent them to college, but has
her eyes still keen to the needs of peo-
ple who don't have the fortitude, the
motivation she does.
One person Ida Turner saw was an
elderly lady with mahogany skin and
steel gray hair living in a miserable
little dwelling. A small knock brought
this somewhat feeble woman to the
door, where the golfing strangers
waited with warm greetings that
melted, at least for a few minutes, the
loneliness in that house.
Grateful.? It is sometimes difficult
to express gratitude when you live in
dire poverty. There is some kind of
pride left in people with little and the
meeting of people from two different
worlds is not always easy. But the
food boxes were like a divine human
link they accepted sometimes in near
silence, while others were kindly dis-
posed to say thanks and smile.
One woman greeted the visitors
wearing a brace beneath her shabby
clothes. A farm worker, she had
broken bones and was practically
helpless to make provision for a fam-
ily. living in a dilapidated trailer. It
was incongruous watching the clean-
liness of, these golfers invade the filth
of someone else's world..
But all the neighborhoods the cara-
van passed through were not ugly. In
neatly kept homes with f lowers and
vegetables 'growing in yards, they
found needs: a mother suddenly the
sole support of three children, work-
ing two jobs after the -father disap-
peared; people with unexpected ill-
nesses and accidents and bills too big.
to fit their jobs.
(See WARTERS on page B-7)