Food drive restocks Casa Maria

By Cheryl Fogle

Arizona Daily Wildcat

A Newman Center food drive held last Saturday gathered five pickup-truck loads of food for the Casa Maria Catholic Worker House.

"Their warehouse was empty Saturday morning, and we restocked it for them," said Gary Womack, a physics graduate student.

Maureen Meyer, the drive's organizer, said about 60 volunteers took an average of three hours going door-to-door collecting the food. She said most of it was canned vegetables.

Womack said people from lower-middle class or poorer areas were more likely to give food than people in affluent areas. He said that people would give a couple of cans from their food stamps allotment.

"People share from their own experience, and because they can relate to the plight of hungry people," he said.

Peter Fox, a chemistry graduate student, serves food at Casa Maria a couple times per month. He said that the canned vegetables would go into the soup they served.

"There's a quiet sense of accomplishment because you make a connection with the person you're serving," Fox said. "You're actually a sign of hope for somebody that there are still people who care."

Fox said that they served many different people.

"There are families with kids, people you might see on street corners and people who look like students or some regular Joe, and you wouldn't think they were homeless," Fox said.

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