THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512150190
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NANCY LEWIS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Jack Brown III was digging hungrily into a thick slice of ham just before he spoke to Pat Robertson Tuesday.
The homeless Norfolk man wanted to explain to the religious broadcaster that his plight was not the result of a lack of trying.
Brown wanted to tell Robertson that he was without a place to call home because he had been unable to find work despite his best efforts. He wanted to ask Robertson's help for himself and thousands of others.
After speaking with Brown Tuesday, Robertson said that he would see if he ``could get something to help this man.''
Brown, meanwhile, continued to enjoy the annual holiday feast sponsored by Operation Blessing and this year held at Pavilion. He said it is the ``food that keeps you going day to day.'' But he added ``it's jobs - work'' that the poor and homeless really need.
Robertson's Operation Blessing, the humanitarian arm of the Christian Broadcasting Network, already feeds the needy across the nation with 3.5 million pounds of food each month. Even these convoys are not enough to stem the rising tide of homelessness and need, said Robertson. He likened trying to help to attempting ``to push back the ocean.''
Robertson explained that the annual event and the larger food project have their roots in his experience. Many years ago, he was sitting down to share a meal with a group of well-to-do supporters when Jesus' words came to him, and he realized that if one wants to give a feast one must go to the highways and byways to make that feast, he said.
Brown was only one of many who partook of the festive holiday meal. Organizers estimated that as many as 3,500 elderly, low income, unemployed and homeless individuals from area cities enjoyed the meal.
Not all who came to Tuesday's meal were homeless, however. Dee Campbell of Virginia Beach, for example, brought her daughter ``to see what it's all about.''
A Portsmouth man, who would not give his name and is employed and not homeless, sat near Brown. He helps those less fortunate than himself, volunteering his time through Volunteers of America to help get homeless individuals to appointments and churches for shelter.
Those who came to Tuesday's meal were directed by more than 100 agencies from Hampton Roads and northern North Carolina cities. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by NANCY LEWIS
Jack Brown III, a homeless Norfolk man, enjoyed Pat Robertson's
Operation Blessing meal at the Pavilion, then asked Robertson, left,
for help in finding work for him and thousands of others.
by CNB