Volunteers do a great service
By Sheila Donnelly/Austin Daily Herald

I had one message left on my phone last week from a woman who said she was a subscriber to the Herald. The woman stated that my piece on the Blooming Prairie Lutefisk Supper was audacious and she wanted a retraction. I have no retraction, as I only wrote about the reaction my brother and husband had from eating lutefisk. I would never say anything against the dedicated women and men that put in long hours to pull these events off year after year.

I have the highest respect to all women and men who work at any church event. Churchwomen are the toughest and hardest workers around and I would never want to tangle with any of them.

I have volunteered for years for several different organizations. When I was 18, I moved to Boston and lived at a Catholic Worker House called Hayley House located on Boyleston Street. Hayley House was a free soup kitchen that was open daily for homeless men. I lived at Hayley House with my sister, Kate, a nurse named Pat and a musician named Jim. Four men that had been homeless were permanent residents of Hayley House. All four were alcoholics and could live at Hayley House as long as they were sober. If they became drunk, they had to turn in their key to the director of Hayley House who lived across the street with her husband and children. I lived at Hayley House for five months. Kate, Pat, Jim and I took turns, along with the director, of manning the door of the soup kitchen every morning.

The doors opened at 6 a.m. and two of the former homeless men who lived in the house, would already have a large urn of coffee ready along with day old bread, bagels and peanut butter to serve for breakfast. Coffee was served again at 9:30 a.m. and soup and bread was served at noon. Fifty men at a time could be in the room where a television, tables and chairs were set up.

A long line of men stretched outside and wound around the block, especially on cold days. When one man left, another would be let in. Twice a week, a hatch door that was in the floor of the kitchen was lifted up for the men to go down narrow steps and get free clothes. Tabs were kept on who took what so that a man wouldn't try to take more than his share and sell it later for booze.

Besides working at Hayley House, Kate and I drove a van filled with homeless men to detoxification at the Bridgewater, Mass. State Hospital twice a week. The men would stay at the hospital for 10 weeks to dry out. Some would line up to go to the hospital every month after they had spent their social security checks on booze and had no where else to go. The same men took the trip every month. We never drove alone when we took the men to the hospital, another man, named Whitey who was tough and wiry, drove along and beat on anyone that got out of line.

Working with the street men 30 years ago when alcohol was the drug of choice, it was safer than it would be today. Now the drugs of choice are heroin, crack, cocaine and others. Hayley House is still in operation today.

No longer do any of the homeless men live at the house, as most are addicts and cannot stay off drugs. It is still a safe place for men to stop in and warm themselves and get a meal. No questions are asked of the men, and no judgments are made. It was not depressing work for me, even though the men chose to not better themselves. I never knew why they settled for where they were in their lives. I saw goodness in each of the men. I learned to not make harsh judgments or assume anything from this experience and to accept people for who they are.