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Driven to serve
© St. Petersburg Times ST. PETERSBURG -- By now, the black cat had even learned the routine. About 5:15, he emerged from his hidden place and strolled lazily toward his spot amid the sprawling root of the big banyan tree. He joined a black and white cat that was there. A few yards away, at the corner of Fifth Street and Mirror Lake Drive, a dozen humans followed the same ritual. "If you're not in the front of the line," a bearded man wearing a cowboy hat said to a companion standing midway up the steps of the Mirror Lake Library, "you don't get anything." "They don't get here till six o'clock," his partner groused. So rather than spend 45 minutes waiting in the line across the street, they spent the time on the library steps watching the line grow. Declarations of dignity are often unheard whispers in this lakeside community. For most residents, hunger and cold speak louder than superficial statements of pride. This is Mirror Lake, where old St. Petersburg stands its ground against the new. The decades-old St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Center, once a world-famous attraction, wears a new name tag -- the Mirror Lake Historic Recreation Complex -- and marks its territory against a comparatively new patch of condominiums. Old strollers glare at young joggers. Renovations replace old facades.
Ducks and water birds come to feed and play in and around the warm water of the lake, which is still except for the fountain raining water into its middle. They do not compete with the people who, impaired by illness and circumstance, come to the lake and its surroundings for the same things. Life here is considerably more bountiful for the birds. Five miles away, in a neighborhood where faith and years of work have been rewarded with warmth, comfort and regular meals, Barbara McClendon is finished in the kitchen. She has labored since 7 a.m., and the house is full of the aroma of chicken, broccoli and mashed potatoes. Nutritional balance is important to her. Timing is also important to her. Her husband, Donnie, will be home soon, and the meal needs to be ready to go when he gets there. Four days a week, this is Barbara McClendon's second career. She retired from the first, as office manager at a local company, after her first grandchild was born. She embarked on the new career three years ago. At 50, she tackles it with the enthusiasm of an entry-level employee trying to work her way up the ladder. "This is some hard work, yeah," she says, "but my boss pays well." She is not referring to a weekly paycheck. Ask Donnie McClendon where the words came from three years ago, and the explanation tumbles out with the boundless energy that most people have used up by the time they reach adulthood. McClendon, 52, says that his Muslim faith inspired him, but it quickly becomes clear that he's not just responding to a religious mandate. He's also being true to the way his mother raised him. "I felt driven. I didn't share it with a lot of people, just my wife," he says. "Honey, there are so many people out there who are hungry," he said to his wife that morning. "They get fed during the holidays. What do they do the rest of the year?" She waited for him to finish. "I have to do something to satisfy my own soul," he said. Barbara's second career was born that day. Donnie says he's a semiretired machinist for GTE who works when he feels like it. "At Sunday school class, we used to fix breakfast for the children, and we found out that was the only meal many of them would get during the day," he says. He was devastated when his mosque closed its pantry. "What we should do is see how many people we can feed maybe just once a week," he told his wife back then. "The first week we did about five meals," he says, laughing at the thought of a time that feels so far away. "We thought we were just doing it." A month into it, they increased the number of meals to eight. A few months later, they increased to two days a week. The need and reception were so overwhelming that the number quickly grew -- to 20, to 60 -- until they fed 100 to 125 people four days a week. The recipients are a mixture of homeless and nearly homeless working poor, those who can't work and those who won't, faithful and faithless. None of that matters to the McClendons. "My job is not to judge them," Donnie says. "My job is to feed them.
The line had grown to about 30 people when the green van stopped at the intersection. The exercise was practiced and precise. That night, the McClendons' son-in-law Kendrick Gray was the third person as they made their stops. Three is the optimum number for efficiently passing out the meals, Donnie discovered long ago. The third person is always a family member, usually their son, Donnie Jr., when he's home from college, but for a short time, a local student helped to fulfill a college requirement. The experience so impressed the student, McClendon said, that when he left, he bought them new pots and a 50-pound bag of rice. On this night, Donnie remained behind the wheel, and Barbara passed the dinners from the coolers to Gray, who was standing outside the door putting them in the waiting hands of the hungry as they filed past. The van was alive with the smell of chicken, broccoli and mashed potatoes. The air outside soon caught up. "God bless you," Gray said. Many repeated the wish back to him. With plastic foam trays in hand, the people dispersed to apartments across the street, to grass, to seats outside the library and to hidden spots around the lake. The 107 meals that took most of the day to prepare were gone within minutes. Donnie liked the smoothness of the operation. He also was pleased that no one had to be turned away hungry. "You turn a person down and he's hungry . . . That's a real bad feeling," he said.
The sign in their van window says: "We feed the hungry." The sign says enough for the McClendons, who declare that it fairly states their calling. But there is much the sign doesn't say. It doesn't say that the McClendons do it four days a week, Monday through Thursday, and haven't missed a day since they started. Consistency is mandatory, Donnie says. "People learn that if they can be here at a certain time of day, they can get a meal." They tell other people, and suddenly, 120 meals is not enough. The challenge of feeding an ever-increasing number is one that pleases and excites Donnie, even though each addition of 30 meals requires the addition of another freezer at home. The McClendons have four. They have four daughters and a son, all of whom have gone on to college, Donnie proudly says. When he was sick with a virus, his daughters and sons-in-law filled the void. When he and Barbara travel to North Carolina for a daughter's birthday, they will again make sure the meals are prepared and served. "Those girls are so trained, all I have to do is leave the keys in the van," Donnie says. Donnie makes an effort to conceal his pride but fails. His idea turned into a project his entire family has embraced and turned into a mission. "You can pass along the knowledge (of how to feed people) but not the inspiration," he says. Donnie Jr., who used to come home from football practice to help with the meals, gives part of his college scholarship stipend each month to help buy food. Donnie said he has tried to discourage his son, but he insists. The McClendons say they spend about $60 per week to feed 120 a day, a feat that is an endless source of awe to Barbara. Occasionally, a neighbor will contribute or someone will donate food, they say. "In doing this, I have come to truly understand the concept of Jesus feeding the multitudes," Barbara says. "I can take three 2-pound bags of rice and get 100 meals out of them." Donnie, who describes himself as strict when it comes to food, is quick to dispel any notion that they sacrifice quality for quantity. "We don't cook no jive food," he says, his jocular tone rising. "These pots be hot!" with dishes such as beef stew. He is quick to add that Barbara's a good cook. They have been married since 1970 and describe each other as their best friend. Other people say they are of such like mind that they act like siblings. Both spent their early childhoods in Alabama a few miles from one another before moving to St. Petersburg, but they didn't know it until after they had met here and married. "I should have known that from her cooking that she was from Alabama," Donnie jokes. His mother cooked like that. "She would fix a big pot of food and say "Y'all fix your plate and take the rest down to Miss Ola Mae's' ' or whoever. She would always share, and I guess that rubbed off on me," he says. At home, once the meals have been distributed, the McClendons claim their time. Sometimes in the din of feeding everybody else, they forget about themselves and end up at home wondering what they're going to eat. "All that food and we come home and eat bologna sandwiches," Donnie jokes. Whether they eat cold sandwiches or a hastily prepared meal, this is the time they experience the joy of their day's work. Donnie calls it a high. "I love what I do," he says. These are the times they enjoy the little moments, such as the first time they saw a faint smile on "Angry Man's" face. Or the time a man standing in line answered another's question of how long they would continue bringing meals. "God will tell you when," was his answer. Their euphoria, however, is not shared by all. Occasionally someone will tell them to stop feeding the bums they're trying to get rid of. One man rode past on a bicycle and yelled "Why don't y'all go to your own neighborhood and feed these bums." Such negative responses, usually delivered in a cowardly manner by somebody riding past, are only momentary distractions for the McClendons. "People in America kind of turn their backs on things," Donnie says. "There's a thin line between having things and not." People would rather not see that people are hungry or children are sleeping in the park, he says. It takes away the guilt of sitting on their butts and doing nothing. This night, a representative of a local advocacy group distributed fliers announcing a march and rally at Williams Park. McClendon listened politely but had no plans to be part of it. Other organizations have approached them over the years, but other than accepting occasional help when it's offered, the McClendons choose to remain independent of any organization. "We don't want a bureaucracy, someone telling us what we can and can't do," Barbara says. "I don't need to march to feed these people," Donnie says. "I don't have to protest the police to feed people. "I don't want to make a political statement. I just want to feed the hungry."
 © St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved. 
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From the wire |
They prepare all the food in their home kitchen, which looks tidy except for pots and pans that Barbara used to cook enough to fill more than 100 plastic foam containers.
