THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507220233
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 142 lines
``Know a place we can stay tonight?'' asks the gangly young man with a bandanna wrapped around his head.
``A cheap rent,'' chimes the other youth. The two have just stepped through Brenda McCormick's front door. It's a Sunday, 8 p.m.
``You should know better. It's summer. There are no cheap rooms,'' says McCormick, her voice reprimanding.
``Go into the woods,'' she tells them - her tone gentle now - then directs them to the patch of Oceanfront woods that, she says, is least likely to be raided by police.
The pair shift their weight from one foot to the other and look down at the floor in unison, then shove their hands a little deeper into the back pockets of their jeans.
McCormick takes the interruption in stride. She fields dozens of ``emergencies'' from the poor and homeless each day.
The word on the street is, ``Go to 417 16th Street, man - that woman will help you.''
But McCormick is about to lose the base of operations for her nonprofit advocacy organization, Mothers Inc. Unless she comes up with $96,000 to buy the house she has rented for six years, she will be forced out by the owner after Sunday.
``Got a smoke?'' asks one of the youths, looking up.
McCormick tosses two cigarettes across the room, which is piled high with blankets and other supplies she collects from donors and passes out to the needy.
``Good luck,'' she says as the boys back out the door.
``Nobody cares about them,'' she says. She tosses her long, curly red hair over her left shoulder, then turns back to her word processor. ``They're throwaway teens.''
Despite a bad cold and ear infection, the 47-year-old mother of 19-year-old twins is working on the exact wording for a three-minute speech she'll give at a School Board meeting, pleading the case for free summer school for poor children. It is the latest cause championed by this unpaid advocate.
She seems oblivious to the fact that by week's end she must vacate the rambling two-story house, the headquarters for the 10-year-old group.
``God will take care of it,'' she replies when reminded of the deadline. Her landlord plans to sell the house, and neither McCormick nor Mothers Inc. has the money to buy it.
Her concern is not for herself; it's for her work in the resort area. She can find a room to rent, but then she wouldn't have space for the volunteer mission workers who stay with her.
Still, that'll have to wait.
``Right now I've got to do something to help these kids,'' she says. ``They'll stay back next year just because their parents can't afford to pay for summer school.''
She has typed only a few words when the phone rings. A volunteer assistant answers, then hands it to McCormick.
After a minute of silent listening, she speaks.
``They don't replace stolen food stamps. No, they don't. Get a referral to the emergency wing from your worker.''
Another minute of patient silence on McCormick's end of the phone. The imposing 5-foot-11 woman is dressed, as usual, in a T-shirt and jeans. It's stiflingly hot inside the house. The one small window air-conditioning unit drones away helplessly. The temperature outside is close to 100 degrees. Beads of sweat break out on her forehead.
``You have a right to an emergency referral. If she won't write one, tell them you want to talk to the supervisor. If that doesn't work, call Dan Stone (Social Services director).''
Another pause.
``OK, if none of that works, the best food right now is at Rock Church, and the place to go for clothes is Kempsville Presbyterian.''
After she hangs up, McCormick explains that the caller, a mother of two, had her purse snatched at the grocery store.
``All of her food stamps were in it. Her social worker told her she didn't qualify, but she reported it to the store manager, and she's got a right to emergency groceries. She said, `The kids are growing like weeds,' and that means they need clothes.''
Tonight, like most nights, McCormick may be called out of bed to drive a drunk person to the city's detoxification center. Or she may be awakened by a call from a homeless mother walking the streets with her children. It won't faze her. No matter the hour, she'll get up and drive them to a motel, where she'll bargain with the night clerk for a $10 room and pay for it herself - even though her electric bill is overdue.
It's just another 24-hour day in the life of this selfless woman who lives on a monthly $573 Air Force widow's pension check and never asks for anything for herself - until now.
McCormick recently mailed out a letter appealing to supporters of her work to help her buy the 16th Street house or find a nearby location.
``She doesn't solicit except for others; in fact, it's the first time I've known her to ask for anything for herself,'' says the Rev. Fritz Stegemann, pastor of Open Door Chapel, of which McCormick has been a member for the past 20 years. ``It will be a sad thing if we lose her. I'd like to see someone come through for her.''
Douglas Johnson, who owns the house McCormick rents, said he is willing to sell the house to her, but he needs to find a buyer, and she doesn't have the money right now.
``I admire her for what she's doing, but I need to sell the house,'' Johnson said.
On July 13, McCormick was ordered by a Circuit Court judge to vacate the premises by this Sunday.
McCormick says it's vital for Mothers Inc. to stay where it is, because it's right in the heart of ``the war zone'' - the south Oceanfront, where many of the city's poor reside and the homeless congregate.
Attorney Glen Huff has agreed to have donations for the purchase of McCormick's house sent to his Virginia Beach law firm.
``My heart goes out to her,'' Huff says. ``She has incredible energy and works in the trenches where no one else is willing to serve. She's totally selfless and unorthodox, but she needs to be.''
McCormick's methods sometimes perturb public officials, who are often the target of her campaigns. But most concede that she serves an important role.
``Of course, she can be very difficult, criticizes the systems, and I may not always agree with her, but her heart's in the right place,'' says Dan Stone, director of the Virginia Beach Department of Social Services. ``It's ironic, and a travesty, that someone who's worked so hard for the homeless would become homeless herself. Her place is an agency - people coming and going.''
Each Christmas, Mothers Inc. distributes some 5,000 new toys to poor Virginia Beach children, and every month, McCormick drives to Norfolk to pick up SHARE foodstuffs for nearly 100 poor Virginia Beach households.
McCormick, a Portsmouth native who holds a degree in mass communications from Emory & Henry College, is currently working on a graduate degree at Regent University, but studies take a back seat to the needs of the disenfranchised hundreds who have come to depend on her for help.
``She's the Mother Teresa of Virginia Beach, a wonderful advocate for the homeless,'' says John Fahey, a former Virginia Beach School Board member and a retired professor at Old Dominion University. ``She could do anything in this world, but she chooses to live with the poor and unfortunate and try to help.'' MEMO: Donations to help Mothers Inc. buy the house may be sent to Huff,
Poole and Mahoney, 4705 Columbus St., Virginia Beach, Va. 23462.
McCormick can be reached at 491-2887.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by CHARLIE MEADS, Staff
Brenda McCormick recently sent out a letter asking for donations to
buy the 16th Street headquarters of Mothers Inc. She will be forced
out after Sunday.
by CNB