Canadians winter in Philadelphia on mission to feed poorest and hungriest

The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT) - Winters are harsh on Prince Edward Island, and so, like many retired Canadians, Fred and Flo MacLean head south by late November.

But it's not to a sunny realm of golf and sailboats and margaritas that these snowbirds migrate.

Their 700-mile journey ends at a dingy corner on Philadelphia's Kensington Avenue, where the El rumbles and shrieks overhead, addicts come and go from abandoned rowhouses, and hundreds of men, women, and children line up each day at the soup kitchen known as St. Francis Inn.

For the last nine winters, the MacLeans have made this Philadelphia neighborhood their own, cooking and serving meals to "the least of these" while living among them.

"When we first get here each year, it's kind of a shock," Fred MacLean, 74, said during a midday break from his chores last week. "I say to myself, 'This is not the world I know.'"

Flo MacLean, 71, nodded. "Where we live, people are poor and simple," she said. "It's mostly a fishing and farming community."

Founded 30 years ago by a Roman Catholic order of Franciscan brothers, St. Francis Inn feeds the poorest of the poor with the help of thousands of volunteers. Most are students. There's no missing Fred, white-haired, and Flo, who is getting there.

He spends most mornings in a van, picking up day-old cake and bread from bakeries and supermarkets, then washes pots and pans throughout the evening meal.

She does, in a word, everything. On a recent Tuesday, she was assistant cook, chopping roast beef for 40 gallons of Southwest chili and supervising the making of salads and desserts. Other days find her at the inn's thrift shop or women's drop-in center.

With no archdiocesan funding, the inn relies on donations. It serves about 250 breakfasts thrice weekly and up to 400 dinners a day. Three-quarters of the diners are male; the mix is roughly equal parts Hispanic, African American, and white.

Around 4 p.m., the "guests" begin forming a line that extends half a block. At 4:30, the first 48 take seats at 12 small tables for a dinner typically consisting of a main course, vegetable, salad, beverage, and dessert. Some greet each other, laughing; others sit silently, their gaze downcast. A few are mothers with small children.

On this recent Tuesday, about 15 students from St. Joseph's Preparatory School served them, spooning the chili into bowls and topping it with rice.

Flo's job was to answer the side door and hand out packaged dinners to guests who were either too disruptive to sit at the tables or would take the food to shut-ins.

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"How's your wife doing?" she asked a bearded man in a Notre Dame sweatshirt, handing him two paper bags.

"Getting better," he replied.

"She was in a terrible car accident," Flo said as the man left. To another she gave a plastic bag of chopped beef. "For his dog," she explained.

Flo spotted Stephanie, a guest in her early 30s. The two talked quietly for about 10 minutes.

"Every year one of them gets inside my head," Flo said later. "This year it's Stephanie," who had broken her nose (no one knew how), spent the night in a deserted factory, and that morning had a drug overdose.

"I wish I could help her," Flo said.

The MacLeans, Catholics who raised nine children and ran a country store in New Hampshire, discovered the inn in 1991 when they brought two of their boys here for a week-long parish service project.

"It was a real awakening to see the level of poverty in this country," Flo said. "It changes your perspective on life."

Moved by the motto "Live simply so that others may simply live," they returned for a week or two each year, staying in a Franciscan-owned house across the street. "Our love nest," Fred joked.

In 1999, they sold the store and retired to an oceanfront home on Prince Edward Island, off Nova Scotia. Facing the prospect of "vegging out" there, they wondered: "Why not keep helping the place we keep coming to?"

That year, they volunteered at the inn for a month, "and then it evolved," Flo said.

Nowadays, they depart the island to spend Thanksgiving with one or another of their children, 27 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren, then head to Philadelphia to work six days a week until mid-March.

They have become part of the inn's core team, including four Franciscan brothers, two Franciscan sisters, and a resident lay staff.

"We try to be a peaceful presence in the neighborhood," said Karen Pushaw, who 15 years ago gave up a home in Devon, Pa., and a job as a Center City Philadelphia securities lawyer to live and work at the inn.

Although Pushaw, 53, calls herself "just a member of the team," the MacLeans describe her as de facto codirector of the inn. "It's kind of a Franciscan thing," Fred explained. "No one's in charge."

Most team members rotate through tasks, cooking one day and handing out meals or serving as supervisor and prayer leader the next.

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By 6 p.m., the last of the guests were gone. Flo wiped the kitchen counters, mopped the floor, and flattened cardboard boxes for recycling.

Fred directed the students in putting away cutlery, and offered them some advice: "We should never complain about our lot in life."

The day ended as it had begun, in the candlelit chapel, where the staff read psalms aloud and prayed.

"For Stephanie," said Flo. "That she can turn her life around."

On Wednesday, the MacLeans returned to Prince Edward Island, to come back when the cold sets in again.

"People ask how we can keep doing this," Flo said. "But we get five million times more out of this than we put in."

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© 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer.