THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512130141
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 170 lines
IT'S A NONDESCRIPT BUILDING, painted a gray blue and lost in the monotony of similar old buildings in the heart of the inner city.
But one step inside the door on this bitter winter day, and one finds instant warmth - an oasis of compassion and kindness in a world that too often can seem bleak and dismal.
At the front, in the thrift shop area of Oasis Social Ministries, a Christmas tree has been decorated. A sign tells shoppers that a purchase allows them to enter a drawing for holiday items.
Those items include a snow-white, handmade quilt decorated with huge, red poinsettias. It was donated by a woman who saw an announcement of the ministry's thrift shop fund raiser in her church bulletin.
The ministry was started in 1970 by a lay group from St. Paul's Catholic Church. They opened a thrift shop and began to coordinate efforts of the parishes in Portsmouth and Chesapeake to serve the needy, according to a history written several years ago.
Twenty-five years later, Oasis still draws much of its strength from those parishes. But it has outgrown other locations and, now at 1020 High St., it has evolved into a well-organized, ecumenical effort that draws support from all over the community.
``Just gradually, as people found out what we were doing and how we were doing it, they began to support us,'' says Shirley Schwenker, chairman of the Oasis board and a member of St. Paul's. ``We're just so thrilled now that faiths join us in what we're trying to do.''
In turn, Oasis helps with other efforts, such as providing food and blankets to the churches that open their doors as shelters for homeless people.
``It's everybody networking and trying to work together, and not against each other, and trying to alleviate a lot of the pain and the hurt,'' Oasis Director Evelyn Screeney says.
And as those needs change, Oasis' services have, too.
Today, in addition to the thrift shop, the ministry offers a daily soup kitchen and food, clothing, household items, even financial assistance, to indigent families and individuals.
And many groups and people looking for a way to help during the holidays turn to the ministry to be matched with families and elderly people who need food and gifts.
About 45 people gathered at an open house last week to celebrate those 25 years. The admission fee was a can of food, and the guests filled two barrels with their donations.
But the next day, it was work as usual as a volunteer carefully cut up squares of the leftover anniversary cake for the hungry people who show up every day for a warm meal.
``When we first started with the soup kitchen, we had maybe just a couple of people a day,'' Schwenker says.
Now, it serves as many as 194 in a day, she says, and consistently feeds more than 100 a day.
On this day, steam is pouring from three industrial-size, rectangular pans on the stove, filled with spaghetti noodles, a thick meat sauce and corn.
A volunteer is slicing large loaves of French bread and dipping each slice into a pan of garlic butter.
In the next room, John S. ``Jack'' Lorber and other volunteers are helping to unload a car that has been loaded up with day-old breads, baked goods and deli items from a Farm Fresh supermarket.
The pantry also gets help from stores like BJs and Rack & Sack.
``We have volunteers that pick up every day from these stores,'' Schwenker says.
On this day, the Farm Fresh has sent bananas, and a crate has been placed at the door so the fruit can be handed out to the lunch crowd as people come into the soup kitchen's dining room.
A sign over the stove reminds mission staff and volunteers to provide a nutritious meal and to ``receive and serve our guests in such a way as to allow them to enter and leave with dignity.''
Different circumstances bring those guests.
Some are homeless. Some are disabled or mentally ill. Some are just temporarily down on their luck. Many are regulars.
``We would like to think we are filling a temporary need for these people,'' Schwenker says. ``We love to see our success stories, where we could help people when they're down and out and we could help them get rolling.''
But for some, it's a lifelong need, she says.
``I think that to even think they could hold down a job is fantasy.''
Most days, the soup kitchen draws more men than women, probably because women with children are more likely to be getting help from government agencies, Oasis Director Screeney says.
The Oasis workers know some of them by name, others by face. And some they get to know the hard way, when substance abuse or mental problems cause them to act out during the meal.
On this day, a man tries to sit down at another table and eat another lunch, and a staff member points out to him that he already has eaten. He denies it and creates a loud scene in the dining room, hurling ethnic insults at her as she walks away. A volunteer tries to calm him down, and then Screeney comes in and defuses the situation.
But she and volunteers don't focus on the negative. They talk about how touched they were by an older man who went over and apologized to the director for the man's behavior.
``They take a lot of abuse sometimes,'' he says later. ``A lot of these guys got attitude problems. They think the world owes them something for nothing. But a lot of people sort of depend on this place.''
Screeney and other Oasis workers know this. They see how the crowd picks up at the end of the month, when people living on disability checks and other fixed incomes fill the dining room.
And sometimes, a whole family shows up.
Screeney, who started as a volunteer more than 20 years ago, remembers one in particular.
They were having a difficult time, even though the father was working a construction job. The mother and children were staying with a relative in Portsmouth, and the father was staying with a friend in Norfolk so he could get transportation to his job.
But he managed somehow to meet his family at Oasis every day, and there they would sit down at the table and hold their family discussions.
``You could just tell they were a family,'' Screeney says.
Scenes like that stick with Screeney and other Oasis workers.
``Most of them come because it's their last choice,'' says Lorber, one of the volunteers. ``It's not a happy thing. It's just that at that moment they're down on their luck, and they need help.''
While lunch is served, staff members in the office area behind the thrift shop are at their desks pouring over a list of 112 applicants who have been approved for holiday assistance.
They are matching gifts, which already have come in, with sizes or requests on the list. Knights of Columbus members have brought them boxes and boxes of dolls, stuffed animals and other toys.
Most of the children who need toys are just about taken care of by now.
It's easy to find people and organizations interested in playing Santa Claus to small children, they say.
But like orphan children who grow too old to be adopted, the teenagers on the gift list have not been matched. The staff members still haven't found sponsors for all those in need of food baskets either.
Still, the Oasis staff and volunteers stay cheerful. Somehow, each year, it works out.
On office clerk Linda Ellis' desk is this framed message: ``And on the eighth day, God created volunteers.''
There are about 60, many of them regulars. And on this day, dozens of them scurry around each other doing their appointed tasks.
Some are pushing grocery carts filled with donated items from the back of the building to the thrift shop out front.
Volunteers and staff members look up and laugh as a whirring sound comes from a battery-operated toy, trapped in one of the loaded-down baskets.
In 25 years, the folks at Oasis have seen good times when donations were plentiful and recessions when they declined.
They also have learned that poverty may never go away and that they may never see a perfect world.
But hope does not fade.
``Just like back in our food pantry,'' Screeney says. ``I've seen the time when there was more wall space than we had canned goods up there. Volunteers would say, `What are we going to do?' ''
Screeney would tell them: ``We share what we've got.''
And over and over, the door opens and someone brings in the bag of groceries they need.
``To me, that's miracles.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
Kitchen workers at Oasis pray before serving lunch. A sign over the
stove reminds the staff to ``receive and serve our guests in such a
way as to allow them to enter and leave with dignity.''
Jack Lorber, one of about 60 Oasis volunteers, gets a thank-you from
Evelyn Screeney, director of the ministry. ``It's everybody
networking and trying to work together, and not against each other,
and trying to alleviate a lot of the pain and the hurt,'' Screeney
says.
Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Different circumstances bring guests for lunch at the Oasis. Some
are homeless. Some are disabled or mentally ill. Some are just
temporarily down on their luck. Most are men. Many are regulars.
by CNB