The feeding of 5,000 — and more

When his number was called, Gerald Beamon walked up to the tables to make his selection. Beamon joined the queue of seniors walking down the line and picking out food, some putting it in a bag, others filling up a push cart.

“They have orange juice if you can handle it,” Beamon said.

Scrutinizing the spread of eggs, yogurt and an assortment of pre-made foods, he took a couple items. Getting to the milk, Beamon grabbed a quart.

“The milk is the important thing, so I don’t have to buy it,” he said.

Getting to the end of the line, he took his reusable bag full of groceries and walked the five minutes back to his apartment.

The food is free — and, for some residents living on a strict fixed income at the Emerald Cove Apartments, a low-income apartment complex for seniors, it’s food they wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford otherwise.

The groceries are brought to the complex by Huntington Beach’s St. Bonaventure Parish Community Catholic Church as part of a number of programs the church does to help feed the hungry in its HOPE office. The office has been helping those who need assistance with food, clothing and a listening ear for more than 30 years.

The church, through donations from church parishioners, local grocery stores and food banks, delivers food and bread to Emerald Cove every Friday.

Beamon, a retired carpenter, only recently moved into the low-income apartments and was amazed by what St. Bonaventure does.

“It’s the kind of thing that you hope human beings would do for others,” he said.

For Joan Moore, a resident of Emerald Cove for about four years, the food helps her supplement what she can afford to buy.

“Financially, it just helps tremendously,” she said.

Moore counts on St. Bonaventure and “the bread lady,” as the residents call her. Without the bread, Moore said, she would have to “scratch up” money to purchase it herself.

“With income restriction, you need all the help you can get,” she said.

A year-round assembly line

Volunteers, all senior citizens, worked around tables set up in a U-shape to form an assembly line. From opening the white plastic bags to stuffing them with powered milk, canned salmon and peanut butter, the assembly line efficiently filled bag after bag as a line began to form for the Brown Bag program at St. Bonaventure.

The Brown Bag program gives seniors a bag full of food from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County twice a month. The church’s volunteers, all seniors with the exception of one, meet every other Thursday morning to assemble the bags. They never know exactly when the truck of supplies will arrive, so they mill around, setting up the production tables and chatting, until they hear the beeping of the truck as it backs up to the building.

Spending their mornings in service to others is what their faith demands, one of the volunteers said. Faith might demand charity work, but SueAnn Kuiper was groomed for it.

Kuiper has been volunteering and learning how to run the office since birth. The daughter of the office’s director, Gerry Saitta, Kuiper said she was she was born into it and eventually became the assistant director.

Following tradition, Kuiper’s own daughter, now 15, is following in her footsteps and being “groomed,” Kuiper joked. The three generations now volunteer their time to help those in need — a need Kuiper has seen grow recently.

“It’s the economic times,” she said. “You can definitely tell in the HOPE office the economic times.”

Kuiper has watched the number of homeless increase and the number of families asking for help grow. The church has been able to meet the growing needs through assistance from the food bank and donations from Albertsons and Trader Joe’s.

In addition to the Brown Bag program and the food delivery to Emerald Cove, the office is open Monday through Friday to provide food, clothing and household items for anyone who needs help. The office also makes holiday boxes on Thanksgiving and Christmas for people to pick up.

Thanks from an artist

Emerald Cove is full of colorful people with lots of stories to tell, but they’ve had better days, Beamon said. He considers himself a social man and likes to help people, but can’t afford to help anyone financially anymore.

A few years ago, his wife died of myeloid leukemia, and although the couple had health insurance, the treatment nearly cost them everything.

After the death of his wife and with time to kill, Beamon turned to art.

Now a religious man, Beamon said he thought about what God would want him to do — use his natural talents. Beaumon took a couple art classes in middle and high school and was always sketching, but getting married and having five kids demanded a steady income.

Now, he is back at it and decided to use his talent to thank the church.

Working in a studio he created in his apartment with an easel and oil paintings, Beamon painted a number of religious works.

After re-honing his skills, Beamon decided to give the church a painting of the Pietà, Michelangelo’s heartbreaking sculpture of Mary cradling the lifeless Jesus in her arms.

“I wanted people to know the work that they do,” he said. “It’s unparalleled”