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PB&J starts workday

Giving peanut butter lunches to day laborers is just one way a church helps those who are trying hard to help themselves.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published March 27, 2005

PINELLAS PARK - Daybreak was still an hour away when the black Hyundai pulled up to the day laborers.

A few approached and quickly grabbed the plastic grocery bags. Each was packed with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

"Guys, be a blessing to somebody today," shouted Pastor David A. Tristani as the men disappeared into the shadows.

It has been three years since Tristani and volunteers from Praise Cathedral Renewal Center began making these early morning rounds.

"We started on Park Boulevard with 50 lunches. We thought we were saving the world. Now on a typical day, we make seven stops. We want to make sure nobody goes hungry," said Tristani, who is associate pastor of outreach ministries and interns at the church, which is at 4371 76th Ave. N.

There was gratitude at each of the seven day-labor agencies where Tristani stopped to give out food one recent Monday morning. Some men were embarrassed. A few, though, displayed a bravado belied by their scruffy sneakers, worn T-shirts and precarious lives.

James McCann, the manager at Labor Ready, 6328 Park Blvd., sympathizes with these temporary workers. Last year he got the national company to give Praise Cathedral a $500 grant to help with the free lunches.

"This is good for my guys," McCann said as Tristani distributed sandwiches.

"Sometimes this is the only meal they get prior to going to work."

Praise Cathedral's lunches form just one segment of its ministry to the poor. Today, Easter Sunday, the church plans to give away 20 bicycles to homeless men and women to help them get to work. The church also offers the homeless free job training, hair cuts, clothing and a Christian-based recovery program.

Under strict rules, a few men are allowed to live and work on church property. The 400-member congregation delivers food to poor single mothers. The church also provides Sunday breakfast that's paired with worship to anyone who shows up at its door.

"More churches should be doing this," Tristani said. "Here at Praise Cathedral, we believe that. Jesus told us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the prisoners."

It's the reason Anne and John Dew, former Episcopalians, now belong to the Pinellas Park church.

"They just do so many things right," said Anne Dew, who prepares 6-pound cans of peanut butter for sandwich makers every Sunday.

Over the years, Praise Cathedral has ventured on unconventional paths. It has, for instance, used professional wrestlers to evangelize. Tristani, 48, a former wrestler with shoulder length gray hair, appeared under the name of Devin Nash. A few years ago, while Pinellas Park mall was still standing, church men made it a practice to walk past its emptying stores to ask for God's blessing. The men also took to Pinellas Park streets, praying for the city block by block and "anointing" hazardous intersections.

The focus now is on the poor and homeless. It's a transient crowd, but Tristani has come to know some who vie for mostly minimum wage, manual jobs during the hours before dawn. He said many live in tents behind Wal-Mart and Dew Cadillac or along railroad tracks. Some live in motels along U.S. 19 and in trailer parks and pool money to pay weekly rent. Others, said Tristani, camp out on a friend or relative's couch.

"Not everybody is living under a bridge," he said.

Daniel Burek, 57, lived in a tent until he was invited to participate in Praise Cathedral's yearlong residential program.

"I was a boat captain in the oil fields, in the gulf off Louisiana," he said in the church kitchen one morning. "I got sick and I couldn't pass the physical for the Department of Transportation. ... It was pretty rough at first. I slept on the sidewalk."

A diabetic, Burek said someone on the street told him about a day-labor agency.

"I lived in the woods for a month doing day labor," he said.

Burek, who works part time at a Dollar General store and also is a security guard, bought a trailer last week and moved from Praise Cathedral's campus Friday.

Each week, it takes 60 loaves of bread, 30 pounds of peanut butter and two cases of jelly to make the 700 to 800 sandwiches the church distributes each week. Depending on donations from companies like Publix and Panera Bread, volunteers are able supplement the sandwiches with cookies, pies, chips or other treats.

There is a need for the free lunches, Tristani said. Some day-labor agencies sell lunches for $4 or $5. They also charge workers for transportation to work sites and to rent work boots and hard hats, he said.

To keep as much of their earnings as possible, "Some won't have anything to eat," he said.

One recent morning, Tristani's first stop was Workers Temporary Staffing Inc., 8674 49th St. N. He had barely popped the car trunk, before several men approached.

Gunther Schwarz, 57, a tall man, was talkative. He had worked for the University of Nebraska for 25 years, he said, but was stabbed in 2003. Schwarz said he got on a Greyhound bus and ended up in St. Petersburg. He lives in a tent.

In took just a few minutes for Tristani to arrive at his next stop, Able Body Labor at 7290 49th St. N.

"God bless you," said one man as the pastor handed him lunch.

Another man, Timmy Earle Nash, 54, wore a blue Extreme Makeover: Home Edition T-shirt. He talked proudly of working at the Seminole house for James Dolan, the man who was blinded in a shooting at a RadioShack last fall. Nash, though, had to cut his story short when his wife yelled to tell him that a work bus was leaving.

"Most of these are good guys," Tristani said as Nash ran across the street.

"Some made poor decisions. Some are educated. Some are mentally disturbed. A lot of the guys do drugs and alcohol. They might start out being clean and sober. The longer they are out there, the harder it is to get them to think rationally."

Tristani's policy is never to go inside the day-labor offices. Instead, he waits for them to come to him. At Labor Finders, 5532 66th St. N, several men stood in line in the office when he drove up. No one budged, afraid to lose their spot. Tristani waited.

One man stopped to chat. Day labor, said "Digger," who would give only his street name, is "the last place to hell. We're pretty much stuck with what nobody else wants to do."

Workforce USA was Tristani's last stop that day. It's where he began the lunch ministry three years ago. This morning, the pastor was late. At 6:30, everyone had already left for their jobs.

[Last modified March 27, 2005, 00:34:19]