THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 31, 1996 TAG: 9605290129
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: 67 lines
Loretta Reilly is an easy subject. I can write about her anytime in good conscience and with admiration.
But just to check out what's going on with her, I went over to Zion Baptist Church one night recently for a tribute to Loretta from the Portsmouth Area Resources Coalition on the occasion of her retirement from the PARC staff.
Now this is not the first time Loretta has ``retired'' from a paying job. She did it at Oasis, a Catholic-sponsored agency that helps people who can't get help anywhere else with items such as food and clothes, but she kept on working as a volunteer. That's how she came to PARC, working first as a volunteer and, I bet, she'll be working right on as a volunteer now that she's ``retired.''
Loretta doesn't retire because of age. She's past that. She retires because she wants to spend more time with her family. That doesn't mean she's quitting. It means she won't be working ALL the time.
Loretta's strength is that she can do it all.
As Jack Lyons of the Oasis board said last week, she is good at serving clients with effective assistance, good at managing an agency and keeping up with paper work, and good at keeping volunteers happy and busy.
But her long suit definitely is service.
Loretta isn't just sympathetic and caring. She's a practical person. Knowing that more than words are needed if a down-and-out person is going to have any hope, she deals with material needs, too.
If she doesn't have the money at hand, she'll find it for those she decides must have material help.
One of her strongest characteristics is an ability to be nonjudgmental. Where most of us stumble, she keeps going.
There's nothing self-righteous about Loretta. Again, when most of us would succumb to smugness, she doesn't even stop to pat herself on the back for successes she has had.
Over the years, I've had any number of phone calls from people who have been helped by Loretta Reilly. Many write letters to her or to others at Oasis or PARC. But for every call or letter, there are many cases nobody ever hears about.
Sure, there are many who have taken the help but have not been able to move ahead. They just can't make it, and Loretta does not judge them.
That ability to understand and tolerate another's failings as well as another's successes is unique in this world. I've known few people in all my years of newspaper work who truly are able to do this.
Although Loretta is a very practical and matter-of-fact person, she is never cynical. She really does embody a lot of what I always have believed to be the core of religion. She succeeds where most of us fail: She loves human beings simply because they are human beings - not because of anything they do or she does.
Most of us cannot be so idealistic. We love others because they are like us - same color, same background, same status, et cetera. Or we love them because they do what we expect them to do - act like us, that is.
Loretta does not seem to be as rigid. She doesn't expect the impossible from those unable - or unwilling - to be like her or like she wants them to be. She'll do her best to help anyone who needs help.
That really is what religion and life are about. Loretta has given of herself to hundreds, maybe even thousands by this time. She has asked nothing in return. She usually seems a little embarrassed by the praise heaped upon her, but she also is tolerant of her colleagues who want to honor her.
If she sounds like a saint walking when folks get to talking about her, that impression is right on the mark.
If there ever were a saint for the poor and needy in Portsmouth, Loretta Reilly is it. by CNB