To anyone else, just keeping body and soul - and the family - together would be challenge enough, yet despite her own daily struggle for survival, Sue made what would turn out to be a life-changing decision: to be a link between surplus food and the many people who needed it. She didn't have to know the statistics - over 33 million Americans, 12.7 million of them children, living with hunger or on the edge of it, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, and a staggering 96 billion pounds of food wasted each year in the United States - to be aware that there were people going hungry in her own community. She began calling local grocery stores and restaurants for donations of surplus food to distribute to shelters and needy families. The response was encouraging. "Restaurants hate to throw away food they've prepared," Sue says. "They were happy to be able to help." From this humble yet bold beginning, Chefs to the Rescue was born, though it didn't yet have a name.
It started as a family project, one that Sue now sees as key in shaping her family's future. "I didn't want our experience to hurt my kids for the rest of their lives," she says. When the idea for redistributing food came to her," It was like it was meant to be - helping other people empowered the kids. They have come out of the experience with a positive outlook, and I hope that when they have to go through hard times, they'll be able to draw on that."
Maintaining a routine was important in keeping the family together through these hard times. The two eldest children, then twelve and thirteen, were in school during the day; the other three, the youngest a baby, accompanied Sue when she cleaned houses, her only means of support. The older children helped the younger ones, baby-sitting, reading to them, assisting with homework - and all of them did chores. "They're awesome kids," Sue says.
Most nights the family stayed in motels when they could afford it, and Sue did her best to make it seem like camping out, an adventure. Cole and Chase, then three and five, loved being able to use the swimming pool, but for Sue, frightened and at times on the edge of despair, keeping up a cheerful façade required all her resourcefulness. Sometimes after she was sure the children were asleep, she would cry, and she remembers all too clearly sitting in a park one day and coming to the realization that she might have to turn them over to welfare. "But we had a family meeting about it, "she says," and they voted to stay together. "During the two years it took to save enough money to rent a house, they continued to deliver food donations to soup kitchens, homeless centers and shelters. "I'm so glad we were busy," Sue says. "It took our minds off our situation."
What motivates such generosity of spirit? Sue's own particular inspiration was her grandmother, the first female officer in the Boise prison - dubbed "Feeder" by Sue's brother because of her habit of generously sharing food, even though she had little money. She also taught female prisoners how to sew. It was only later, however, that Sue became fully aware of her grandmother's influence. Though she'd studied social work in college, Sue knew nothing about homelessness and says she probably shared most people's attitude of indifference. Her personal experience taught her what it means to be homeless, hungry and abused, and now, in her work with the Idaho Foodbank, she says, "Every day I learn something from somebody else. I meet people who are priceless."
One such person was Roger Simon, executive director of the Idaho Foodbank. Sue met Roger a year or so after starting her project. At that time, having caught the attention of the local media, she was doing a TV appeal for volunteers. "I didn't know who he was and I tried to recruit him," Sue laughs. Instead he persuaded her to come work with him. Today, what began as a part-time job is full-time, and Chefs to the Rescue, the program Sue initiated and now heads, is an important part of the food bank's work. Roger, Sue maintains, is "the reason Chefs to the Rescue has grown. He has been instrumental in getting funding, grants, a vehicle ..." Although, she adds, he jokes that he knows he could get her to do all this for free - and he's right.
"How many people get paid to do a job they love?" Sue asks.
"It's a gift to be able to go to work and help people." She expresses the hope that through the experiences she encounters daily, she has become a more compassionate and understanding person. Roger Simon has no doubt about that. "Sue's heart is what drives her," he says.
Having personally delivered hundreds of thousands of pounds of donated food, Sue is currently working toward helping other cities and food banks adopt the same food-rescue policy that last year alone was instrumental in acquiring 187,000 pounds of surplus food. If that sounds like a challenge, Sue is ready to hear from you!
THE CAR LIGHTS passing by the side road kept Mary Crandall awake. She glanced into the back seat where her son, Bob, and her daughter, Ann, were finally asleep. Sandwiched between them, the toddler, John, was sound asleep in his little car seat. Mary pushed back a strand of dark hair and glanced worriedly out the window. She'd never in her life slept in a car. But she and her children had just been evicted from their rental home, by a worried young policewoman with a legal eviction notice. She hadn't wanted to enforce the order but had no choice since Mary hadn't paid the rent in full. The rent had gone up and Mary could no longer afford the monthly payments.
It was Mary who'd comforted her, assuring her that she and the children would manage somehow. The order hadn't mentioned the automobile, although Mary was sure that it would be taken, too. The thing was, it hadn't been taken today. By tomorrow, perhaps, the shock would wear off and she could function again. She was resourceful, and not afraid of hard work. She'd manage.
The fear of the unknown was the worst. But she knew that she and the children would be all right. They had to be! If only she didn't have to take the risk of having them in a parked car with her in the middle of the night. Like any big city, Phoenix was dangerous at night.
She didn't dare go to sleep. The car doors didn't even lock....
Just as she was worrying about that, car lights suddenly flashed in the rearview mirror. Blue lights. She groaned. It was a police car. Now they were in for it. What did they do to a woman for sleeping in a car with her kids? Was it against the law?
Mary had a sad picture of herself in mind as the police car stopped. She hadn't combed her dark, thick hair all day. There were circles under her big, light blue eyes. Her slender figure was all too thin and her jeans and cotton shirt were hopelessly wrinkled. She wasn't going to make a good impression.
She rolled the window down as a uniformed officer walked up to the driver's window with a pad in one hand, and the other hand on the butt of his service revolver. Mary swallowed. Hard.
The officer leaned down. He was clean-shaven, neat in appearance. "May I see your license and registration, please?" he asked politely.
With a pained sigh, she produced them from her tattered purse and handed them to him. "I guess you're going to arrest us," she said miserably as she turned on the inside lights.
He directed his gaze to the back seat, where Bob, Ann and John were still asleep, then looked back at Mary. He glanced at her license and registration and passed them back to her." You can't sleep in a car," he said.
She smiled sadly. "Then it's on the ground, I'm afraid. We were just evicted from our home." Without knowing why, she added," The divorce was final today and he left us high and dry. To add insult to injury, he wants the car for himself, but he can't find it tonight."
His face didn't betray anything, but she sensed anger in him. "I won't ask why the children have to be punished along with you," he replied. "I've been at this job for twenty years. There isn't much I haven't seen."
"I imagine so. Well, do we go in handcuffs ...?"
"Don't be absurd. There's a shelter near here, a very well-run one. I know the lady who manages it. She'll give you a place to sleep and help you find the right resources to solve your situation."
Tears sprung to her light eyes. She couldn't believe he was willing to help them! "Now, don't cry," he ground out. "If you cry, I'll cry, and just imagine how it will look to my superiors if it gets around? They'll call me a sissy!"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from More Than Words by Diana Palmer Carla Neggers Emilie Richards Brenda Novak Susan Mallery Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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