• BY LESLIE WILBER - LWILBER@VICAD.COM
• Originally published December 8, 2009 at midnight, updated December 9, 2009 at 4:02 p.m.

• HOW TO HELP

  Volunteers with Trinity Episcopal Church tout their sandwich distribution as an easy way to help the community.

  "My hope has always been this project would become larger with the help of other churches," the Rev. Bur ...

• SHOW ALL »

HOW TO HELP

Volunteers with Trinity Episcopal Church tout their sandwich distribution as an easy way to help the community.

"My hope has always been this project would become larger with the help of other churches," the Rev. Bur Dobbins said. Starting a similar outreach doesn't require any special materials - just food and a place to assemble sandwiches, volunteer Ada Sutherland said.

To learn more, call the church at 361-573-3228.

IF YOU GO

Sandwiches are distributed at three locations Sunday night:

5:30 p.m. - Crossroads Apartments, at the corner of San Antonio and Azalea streets

6 p.m. - Regency Inn, 2605 Houston Hwy.

6:30 p.m. - Six Flags Motel, 3009 Houston Hwy.

The man in the battered sedan doesn't want a sandwich, thank you.

Brenda Murray presses. She ducks her neatly styled blond head to window level and offers a bag. The sandwiches are free, she insists. Anyone who is hungry can have one.

The man can't resist for long. Before they're done talking, he's halfway through the ham and cheese.

On Sunday nights, volunteers with Trinity Episcopal Church meet mothers who lack food and people who live behind motel-room doors with holes rotting into the bottom.

The goal of the church's recently launched outreach program is not to solve these larger problems. The Sunday-night sandwich distribution offers a meal when soup kitchens and the food banks are closed. Just as importantly, the distribution lets people in need know someone cares, church members say.

"So many people just think they're faceless," said the Rev. Bur Dobbins, who started the sandwich outreach in mid-October. "If you're near the bottom of the rung, you don't think anyone cares about you or anyone thinks about you."

Ada Sutherland was thrilled when Dobbins came to Trinity Episcopal three years ago. She knew the new reverend had a passion for helping people, and she hoped he'd build a community outreach program that would become a church hallmark.

"Bur has always wanted to do mission and outreach," Sutherland said. "That's his bag."

Trinity Episcopal sets aside money in its annual budget to help the community, said Dobbins, who's known simply as Bur.

He didn't want to simply pay to solve a problem. He wanted church members to work directly with people, and maybe try things they weren't comfortable with.

"By pushing themselves, they experience something they might not otherwise experience," Dobbins said.

The committee in charge of organizing the outreach program was particularly interested in helping children, Sutherland said. By working with local homeless advocates, Sutherland learned Victoria lacked free meal distribution on Sunday nights, and in several areas children were likely suffering because of that.

The committee decided on sandwich distribution: they could make the sandwiches in the church's kitchen for less than $120 a week. Bringing the sandwiches directly to people would help recipients and sidestep the need to create a dining area.

Regency Inn, Six Flags Motel and the Crossroads Apartments were on the short list of neighborhoods in need of help.

Motels along the Houston Highway and the mid-town apartment complex are also areas many people avoid.

"Tragically, we encounter a greater-than average crime activity and violent crime in those areas," Police Chief Bruce Ure said.

The sandwich distribution began at Six Flags Motel and Regency Inn. Some people were worried about volunteers bringing food directly to low-income, higher-crime neighborhoods, Sutherland said.

The first few weekends, some recipients were suspicious, Dobbins said. But volunteers gained residents' trust as they handed out sandwiches every week, no questions asked.

"We've never had anything scary happen," Dobbins said. "It's all been positive."

By mid-November, members of the church seemed at home in the motel parking lots. At Regency, Sutherland and Murray catch up with a woman who works at the front desk. At Six Flags, Dobbins' three-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and a girl who lives at the motel chase each other and giggle.

Some Six Flags residents ask for their sandwiches sheepishly. Beth Bradbury tells people not to be embarrassed; she knows what it's like to need help. She and her fiance, Rene Garcia, have a unique view of the outreach.

"This week it's not us with our hands out," she said. "We're able to do it for somebody else."

The couple was almost homeless once. Earlier this year, they lived at Crossroads Apartments, and Bradbury saw children who were hardly cared for because their parents struggled with addiction or poverty.

Sutherland asked her on a recent Sunday night: Where in Victoria is there the greatest need to feed children? Bradbury said Crossroads.

"It's a rough place; it's a very rough place" said Beth Bradbury, a member of the Trinity Episcopal committee that started the sandwich outreach. "The kids are hungry."

The warnings about the neighborhood didn't outweigh the need to feed children.

"I looked at Ada and I said 'Hey, let's go,'" Murray said. Both women are veterans of missionary work. Sutherland led youth groups on trips to New York and Mexico. Murray traveled to Uganda.

So they unpacked sandwiches from Garcia's truck and Murray's Chrysler sedan at the corner of San Antonio and Azalea streets. Robert Garza Jr., 18, has friends in the neighborhood, so he walked around the buildings, telling everyone to come get free food.

Marcella Gonzales could barely believe her family's good fortune. There were seven children in her home that night.

"To be honest," she said. "We don't have nothing to eat."

Murray was apologetic when she told Gonzales there were only seven meals left.

"That's fine," Gonzales said. "We'll share."

Many of the people Trinity Episcopal volunteers feed each week are grateful for a meal. But those who distribute the sandwiches value the program, too.

"I get as much going out and doing this as they get," Murray said.

Sometimes as many as a dozen people gather in the church kitchen each week. They set up an assembly line - bread, ham, cheese, bag, condiment packets, crackers. As they work, they catch up on church news: Who's had a baby? Who's in the hospital? Making the meals has almost become a timed game. On their best days, the group can fix 125 sandwiches in a little more than 20 minutes.

The best part of the evening, though, is meeting the people who will eat the sandwiches, Sutherland said.

"You're not doing much," she said. "But you're doing what you can. There's something that makes me want to go back every Sunday."

• Print
• •
• Share
  • Share this item

    Send this to a friend

    Share on FaceBook

  • Grab the link

    Copy and paste the link:

  • Blog about it

    Blog about this page.

  • Close
• •
• 5 Comments
• •
• Favorite
• •
• Report error
  • Thank you for your submission.
    Error report or correction

    Contact name (optional) Contact phone/e-mail (optional)  

    
  • Close
• •