IMAGE: CNS photo/Jose Montoya
By Jose Montoya
WASHINGTON (CNS) — While
driving to work with his son, Eric Von Gay Sr. noticed a homeless man walk out
of his tent to look for food in the grass. That’s when Eric Gay Jr. got the
idea to “keep what Father Bill started.”
His thought about helping
the less fortunate was in response to a luncheon Father Bill Carloni hosted for
underserved people a couple weeks earlier at Holy Name Catholic Church in
Washington, where the priest is administrator.
Eric Jr. believed his
idea would be a perfect way to get the community at Holy Name involved with
doing something bigger than themselves.
Since then, Eric Sr. and
his wife, Gale Gay, committed themselves to giving food to the homeless after
church.
“In this day and age with
all that’s going on, I think people need to see that there are people out there
that are trying to help them,” said Gale, who spoke to Catholic News Service
while giving out lunches. “A positive image that we give to them might give
them a vision to what they could do for somebody else.”
Before the school year
ended in June, Father Carloni got some of the kids involved with the bagged
lunch program.
“When school was in, we
would give them (sandwiches) to Father Bill and he would have the kids ‘ walk
out with them and give them to the homeless,” Eric Sr. said.
Overall it is a group
effort to help those in need, he added.
Holy Name is not only
changing the lives of those in need, but its parishioners as well.
“It’s like a fellowship,”
Eric Sr. said. “There would be like 20 people down here putting together 50,
60, 70 lunches together.”
Every other Sunday,
parishioners gather after the 11 a.m. Mass and fill bags with a sandwich, chips
and water. After the bags are prepared, the group walks around the Atlas
neighborhood near the church and gives the food to homeless people.
For Eric Sr., “it’s a
great feeling.” From the smiling faces to the conversations, he loves
interacting with and giving to those in need.
He has served as the
parish council president for 10 years and is a member of the 11 a.m. choir. In
addition to giving meals to the homeless on the streets, he volunteers his time
at the church’s food pantry.
The pantry at Holy Name
started as a couple cabinets of food in 2014. The pantry gave out around 10 to
15 bags of groceries per week when they first started. Since then, it has
transitioned to a room filled with food in addition to two refrigerators and
freezers.
“Now we serve people
twice a week,” said pantry volunteer Teresa King-Smith.
The pantry is open on the
second and fourth Tuesdays and Thursdays of each month. People can come to the
pantry on Tuesdays from 5-7 p.m. and on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
King began volunteering
at Assumption Catholic Church in 2008. In fall 2014, she left Assumption and
came to Holy Name.
The food pantry
consistently gives out 75 to 100 bags per week.
“Our group is steady
because most of them are low-income to under low-income,” King told CNS. “We
have people come all year long.”
It’s not just the food
people come for. Many of them come for prayers from Father Carloni or one of
the volunteers. King said she enjoys when people ask for a hug and prayer.
The priest’s church is
lively and full of music that has the congregation clapping to the beat. During
the rite of Peace, Father Carloni walks around the entire church and shakes
each person’s hand.
Holy Name’s churchgoers
are diverse in age and race, and Father Carloni said he enjoys seeing the
change in the parish community — which reflects the changes in the
neighborhood around Holy Name.
“This is a neighborhood
that is transforming very quickly,” Father Carloni said.
To learn more about the
community near Holy Name, Father Carloni asked the District of Columbia
government to conduct a study on the area’s demographics.
It showed the
neighborhood has a high percentage of young adults, that the cost of housing
has risen and the amount of people living in poverty has remained similar to
what it has been.
“Of all the changes that
have happened, the amount of people that are under the poverty line has only
gone down 1 percent,” Father Carloni said.
This means that those who
cannot afford to move out of the neighborhood to find a lower cost of living
became more prone to being at the poverty level.
Because of the large
number of those in poverty near the church, Holy Name has continued to find
ways to help those in its community.
Between the bagged lunch
and the food pantry, Holy Name puts a big effort into helping out those in
need. The church doesn’t just help those without homes.
“Some of these people
have homes, it’s just that they don’t have enough as far as financial
stability,” Gale Gay said.
Cheryl McLaughlin, director
of religious education and parish secretary at Holy Name, has seen the effects
of homelessness in the Trinidad neighborhood, which sits just north of the
church and is where many of the church members live.
“I have the privilege of
living in the Trinidad neighborhood so I get to see a lot of what goes on in
the neighborhood,” McLaughlin said. “We have a lot of homeless people.”
To help those in need,
Holy Name provides much more than food, she said.
“We also have shampoos
and soaps and toothbrushes and toothpastes and razors and combs,” McLaughlin
said. “Simple things that the average person takes for granted, we provide
those for anybody that comes to the door and have a need.”
Throughout the year, Gale
and her husband offer advice to those they reach out to who need to get on a
better financial footing.
“It’s not only about
being homeless, but about people that just feel like they don’t have a way out,
don’t have a way to succeed,” Gale said. “(We’re) trying to give them that
vision that they do.”
In the end, it’s about
being there for others.
“You don’t have to be a rich
person or a poor person to give back to your community,” Eric Sr. said. “You
just have to have commitment to your community and a commitment to the Lord.”
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