Feeding west county's needy
Volunteer Naomi Curtis credited for starting wildly successful parish food bank
Naomi Curtis is co-founder of the Rural Food Program at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Occidental.
Jeff Kan Lee/PDPublished: Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 4:03 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 4:03 a.m.
To hear Naomi Curtis tell it, she was enlisted by her former parish priest in Occidental to start a food program for needy families 24 years ago.
Rev. Thomas Devereaux needed someone to head the nascent Rural Food Program at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church, and Curtis, a retired social worker, fit the bill.
"He shanghaied me," said Curtis, an articulate 85-year-old great-grandmother who walks slowly with a cane but radiates energy.
But the truth is, Curtis, a transplanted Midwesterner who clearly remembers the Great Depression, was ripe for the challenge of feeding the less fortunate. "I was retired," she said, "and looking for something to do."
Eleven families showed up at the first food distribution in June 1986, and the program has continued ever since on the second Tuesday of every month, as four subsequent pastors have come to the red-shingled, 107-year-old church in the heart of Occidental.
Food for 300 to 400 people now gets picked up at the parish hall each month.
"I think it's one of the bright lights of this parish," said the Rev. Gary Logan, administrator at St. Philip and neighboring St. Teresa of Avila Mission in Bodega.
Devereaux, now pastor at St. Peter's Church in Cloverdale, said Curtis "works hard to help people" and brings a rare sensitivity to her mission.
"Whenever she helps somebody, she always protects their dignity," he said.
"Naomi Curtis is a saint," parishioner Kathy Rosa of Occidental said.
There were few social services in west county in the 1980s, said Curtis, who bought property west of Occidental in 1970 with her husband, Jack, and began living there full time in 1983. The couple moved to Sebastopol in 1998.
Curtis and Rose Cauchi, who left after four years, got the food program going under the auspices of Catholic Charities.
"I did a lot of begging, going around talking to people," said Curtis, who is descended from English Catholic colonists who settled in Maryland in 1634.
Ranchers, residents, restaurants and church camps along Bohemian Highway responded with farm-fresh food, cash and volunteer help. "Everybody just got involved," she said.
People living on the beach at Jenner and AIDS patients were among the program's early clientele. Recipients are screened, but the program operates on an honor system, without verifying income, Curtis said.
Addresses are checked because the food is intended for residents within about 100 square miles of Occidental.
"We don't have too many rules," Curtis said. One principle remained inflexible: All donated food must be palatable. "We wouldn't serve the poor anything we wouldn't eat ourselves," she said.
A special collection at St. Philip and St. Teresa on the last Sunday of every month raises $800 to $1,200 and funds much of the program. About 200 families regularly attend services at the two churches.
Their strong support for the food program is a mix of rural culture -- "taking care of their own," Curtis said -- and Christian duty.
"That's what we're supposed to do," she said. "Aid our brothers and sisters in Christ."
Logan said he's impressed by the cadre of volunteers, Catholic parishioners and non-members, who collect, sort and distribute the food "week after week, year after year. It's amazing."
Curtis, who began volunteering in high school as a Sunday school teacher, traces that inclination to her father, a southern Indiana farmer. "I remember papa giving food to the people who would come out from the towns," she said.
Years later, working as a volunteer with young street people who had become homosexual prostitutes in San Francisco's Tenderloin, Curtis said she saw far more eye-popping behavior.
Curtis quit running the food program about five years ago and now participates in a senior group at St. Philip. Rod DeMartini, a retired Catholic priest, took over the food program a year ago and said the need is expanding as able-bodied young people lose their jobs.
Were she to write a book, Curtis said it might be called "The Care and Feeding of Volunteers."
Volunteers may be pure in motive, but they require effective management, Curtis said. Volunteers must be trained, and their skills must be well-suited to their duties.
It's like parenting and managing a business, she said. People volunteer for the emotional rewards, but they still need verbal approval.
"Everybody responds to praise," Curtis said. "People often forget that with volunteers."
You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.
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