Thread: NY: Day laborers invade soup kitchens for free food

lohud.com

December 8, 2008

Day laborers find reprieve at soup kitchen

Theresa Juva
The Journal News

PORT CHESTER — Jose Antonio Correa folded his hands and bowed his head in prayer over a lunch tray.

Correa, who is looking for carpentry work after losing his pizzeria job four months ago, is grateful for the hamburger and soup he gets at the Don Bosco Community Center.

"It's a miracle for everybody that they help," the 71-year-old immigrant from Honduras said in Spanish. "They help with all the problems because we have no work."

Dozens of men and some women with children filed into the soup kitchen on a recent Tuesday to get warm and enjoy a short reprieve from the worry of finding work. The only daily soup kitchen in the village is part of a food pantry, clothes closet and day laborer site at the community center. It is run by Our Lady of the Rosary Church next door.

Peggy Lieb, a community organizer with the Westchester Hispanic Coalition, works at the day laborer site, negotiating wages between potential employers and workers. She said the growing number of men looking for construction work is pushing up demand at the soup kitchen.

With an economic recession in full swing, fewer potential employers have been looking for workers to paint walls, hammer together floors, or spruce up gardens in Greenwich, Rye or Mamaroneck.

"Today, we have 69 people who came and two employers," she said. " In the past it was 10 or 15."

Bill Varccaro, a deacon at Holy Rosary and one of the kitchen's organizers, said the kitchen is on pace to serve 42,000 meals by the end of the year - 9,000 more meals than last year. On Thanksgiving, the kitchen served 365 people; last year it served 225.

"We knew (with) the economy the way it is there would be less work available, so we planned for more groups to do food drives," he said, noting that meal supplies come from local churches and the Food Bank for Westchester. "We expect a further increase. I think we'll hit our highest numbers in the next year."

Selvin Maldonado, 35, gets a meal at the kitchen almost every day, now that he has been out of work for the past month. He arrives each morning at six, hoping to get picked for a construction job.

"I get coffee and wait for someone," he said slowly in English. "This year is much more difficult."

If he can't get a job by the afternoon, he returns to his apartment on Madison Avenue and reads the Bible to pass the time. But he doesn't dwell on his plight.

"It will make you go crazy if you think," he said. "No sleeping. No eating."

Ovidio Cifuentes, who last worked in Greenwich three weeks earlier, worried about not being able to send money home to his parents and girlfriend in Guatemala. He used to make $500 a week from painting and putting up gypsum wallboard. He eats at the soup kitchen to save the little money he has.

"This is a place we can eat and we don't have the extra expense of buying food when we're not working," he said in Spanish.

Correa said not having a job stirs up the anxiety he felt when he decided to leave Honduras 10 years ago. That's when Hurricane Mitch ripped through the country, causing flooding and mudslides that killed his neighbors and destroyed homes.

These days, he worries about losing his home because he can't pay $300 for his December rent. To put a few dollars in his pocket, he collects cans and bottles and returns them to the supermarket.

Still, he is hopeful that his afternoons of eating at the soup kitchen will soon end.

A man recently called and said he might have work for Correa next month in a company cafeteria on Westchester Avenue.

"I have faith," he said. "God will provide."

http://www.lohud.com/article/2008812080327

"I have faith," he said. "God will provide."

Yes he will and your ministers should have told you he will provide for you in your homeland.

Go home and be with your family, "God will provide" for you there.

Dixie

Should I be getting all teary eyed now?

I am so sorry to feel this way , but they really need to go back SOUTH! At least it is not as COLD THERE> Besides they eat the foods in many of our food banks as well. And these banks are running very low these days.

This country , no matter how strong she may be ,can not sustain the onslaught of MILLIONS of ILLEGALS and their consumption.

And that does not count the MILLIONS of DOLLARS we send to these other countries governments for aide. So where do you think all that money is going?

SEND THEM HOME AND PROTECT OUR BORDERS FROM ALL INVADERS!!!!

This is why I don't donate to charities that I suspect do not screen for whether they give aid to illegals. There are plenty of our own people who need the help. I'm just one person, but they should realize that it does hurt their donations. I just give to other causes- such as fighting illegal immigration.

"This is a place we can eat and we don't have the extra expense of buying food when we're not working," he said in Spanish.

Yea, take advantage of EVERYTHING THAT IS FREE. Without sounding cold, those people need to leave America. Those soup kitchens are for Americas poor, NOT ILLEGAL ALIENS.

Originally Posted by butterbean

"This is a place we can eat and we don't have the extra expense of buying food when we're not working," he said in Spanish.

Yea, take advantage of EVERYTHING THAT IS FREE. Without sounding cold, those people need to leave America. Those soup kitchens are for Americas poor, NOT ILLEGAL ALIENS.

....and there are plenty of very POOR Americans right now....who need all the sevices they can get. It is outrageous that people who should not be here are benefiting from these sevices.

as I sit here eating the soup that Americans apy for, I can't help but wonder how much help the dollars that paid for this would give to natural Americans.
Oh well, not my problemo! Si se puede!!!!