Recycling Souls

by Doug Trouten

Tucked away near the increasingly misnamed warehouse district in downtown Minneapolis, home to trendy clubs and restaurants, is the Hennepin Energy Resource Company, not-so-affectionately known as “the HERC“ by its neighbors. The massive garbage burner converts more than 365,000 tons of trash into electricity each year, burning it at temperatures upwards of 1,400 degrees to make steam, reclaim ferrous metals and reduce volume.

In its shadow sits a different kind of recycling facility. Like the HERC, it’s a pleasant building of light-colored stone whose appearance gives little hint of the forces at work inside. But Sharing and Caring Hands isn’t recovering metals or energy. Instead, it’s reclaiming human souls.

Serving Jesus Himself

Part soup kitchen, part food shelf, part free clinic and part anything else a homeless person could need, Sharing and Caring Hands offers one-stop shopping for destitute people hoping to turn their lives around—helping more than 1,600 people each day, and each month providing 20,000 meals and 200 pairs of shoes, as well as responding to more than 2,000 other special requests. The ministry also offers volunteer opportunities for more than 1,000 people each year.

Many roads lead to Sharing and Caring Hands—both literally and figuratively. It’s easy to find once you know it’s there. There’s a bus stop just a few steps from the front door, and a freeway just a couple of blocks farther. But what brings most people here isn’t a car or a bus. Often, it’s a vial of crack, a bottle of whiskey, an abusive relationship or mental illness.

For Mary Jo Copeland, the suburban mother of 12 who built this ministry from the ground up—starting in 1985 with a philanthropy grant from a local TV station—it doesn’t really matter what brings people through her door.

“We have a crisis going on,“ she explains. “There’s a lot of chemical dependency and mental illness, especially with the real hardcore people who live under bridges. Other people are here through no fault of their own. But even if that’s not the case, the things that bring people down—the bad credit, the bad relationships, the drug problems—it doesn’t matter. We’re called to reach out and do what we can, taking people as they come to us, not as we want them to be.“

Copeland’s sturdy build, rosy cheeks and an old-fashioned Dutch Boy hairdo make her look like a stereotypical public school cafeteria worker—appropriate, perhaps, for the founder of a center that feeds hundreds each day, touching both physical and spiritual needs.

“You can never bring God to a starving person,“ she explains. “Some people will say the help we give is just a Band-aid solution, but I say if a person’s bleeding you take care of that bleeding. But I also have prayer a couple of times a day there. When people come in, they know God loves them. We remind people of God’s love, and remind them that none of us, on our journeys, walk alone.“

That thought brings joy to Copeland, and to her guests. Today in her cafeteria more than 100 people sit in blue plastic chairs at long folding tables, sharing smiles and boisterous laughter. It seems more like a family reunion than a last desperate grab at redemption.

The mood is so upbeat that the few anomalies leap out: the angry woman stalking off and cursing to herself, a man in his mid-50s vigorously shadow-boxing as he walks alone down the ramp leading to the building. A couple of young men in black coats with hoods pulled up to shadow their faces also stand out. But those are the exceptions. Most folks seem happy, talkative, comfortable—and loved.

Sharing and Caring Hands is run by devout Christians who believe that when they serve the neediest in society they are—in a way that’s not entirely figurative—serving Jesus Himself. The love, respect and devotion that flow from this assumption flood the building, washing away the hostility bred by life on the street.

A Better Life Ahead

If you’ve spent any time in missions or homeless shelters, one of the first things you notice about Sharing and Caring Hands is the smell—or, to be more precise, its absence. Your eyes tell you that it’s a place frequented by unwashed street people, but your nose refuses to provide confirmation.

The facility is almost fanatically clean. Bright terrazzo floors with flecks of blue and red glisten underfoot. A gleaming, stainless steel commercial kitchen speaks of a devoted staff. In a well-organized food shelf area, pallets of canned goods neatly line the walls, with cases of generic canned vegetables competing for space with cans of tuna. The clothing donation room smells only of clean laundry.

That commitment to cleanliness comes straight from Copeland. A childhood spent in a filthy home with an abusive father gave her firsthand knowledge of the toll that disorderly surroundings can take on the human spirit.

At Sharing and Caring Hands, Copeland has created a welcoming environment—a building that by itself seems to promise a better life ahead. Light oak wainscoting girds walls painted a soft white. Bright blue trim accents each room and matches the dining room chairs. Huge windows provide light and warmth. While the office areas may be a bit cramped, the public rooms and hallways are spacious. In the dining room a 20-foot ceiling is gently domed, an architectural feature that lets people know on a subconscious level that they’ve found a spot where there’s room to breathe. Even when it’s not mealtime you can find a cup of coffee or carton of milk and a clean, comfortable room to drink it in. Smiling visitors swap stories, share survival tips and enjoy a respite from the harsh realities of life.

Anybody who walks in off the street can get a meal or clothing (as long as they’re not inebriated or armed) but people who want something else—a place to live, bus tokens, emergency cash or other “big ticket“ items—must talk to Copeland. She hears each petitioner personally and through an informal process that drove her former employers at Catholic Charities crazy, she makes decisions on the spot.

“I pray for discernment and wisdom,“ Copeland says, noting that she tries to spend her limited funds where it will do the most good. “I work the line, and I have people check out the stories. I don’t turn people down without doing a lot of checking. And when you work the line, you get to know the chronics. I don’t think there’s anybody beyond help. But there are people I won’t enable by giving them things when they can help themselves. People who can help themselves need to do that, because there’s plenty who can’t.“

“It’s pretty hard to fool her,“ says Jean Erand, who has worked with Copeland for 19 years. “She prays a lot—and she’s got a lot of street smarts. She knows when people are trying to put things over on her.“

Prayer at Dawn

At 62, Copeland still tackles her work with an energy that leaves younger volunteers rushing to keep up. She draws her strength from prayer. Each day she visits her church before dawn for a time of meditation and prayer before starting a 10- to 12-hour shift at the center.

“Prayer gives you grace,“ she explains, “and grace is the life of God within you. I look at what Jesus did on the cross, how much He gave for humanity. Can I do less?

“I spend time praising and thanking God, and in that time I’m so filled with peace that I can’t wait to come here and share it. The way we show our love for God is by showing love to others.“

Copeland seems to know almost everybody in the building. When she’s not hearing appeals for support, she moves from room to room and person to person, greeting, talking, touching, loving. Her friendly physical contact with the untouchables of society and her compassionate smile are rays of sunshine into lives filled with winter.

The Twin Cities area where Copeland’s ministry is based isn’t an unusually poor community, but a quarter of children under age 18 in Minneapolis and the St. Paul area live in poverty. A 2003 study found more than 1,300 homeless families in shelters and transitional housing programs, including more than 2,700 children.

Copeland is tackling this problem in a number of ways. In addition to Sharing and Caring Hands, the devoutly Catholic Copeland runs a transitional housing facility called Mary’s Place, plus a nearby daycare and teen facility. Her next project is an orphanage; she already has the land and is working to raise funds to build the facility.

“The foster care system doesn’t have enough good foster homes,“ she says. “That’s why we have some of the crime we have—the kids haven’t been loved. That’s why I have to build it.“ The orphanage is another piece of the puzzle for Copeland, who believes that the problem of poverty is solved a little bit at a time.

“The day-to-day stuff is our solution,“ she insists. “The real solution is in the day-to-day effort, reaching out to take care of some of the crises before they become major ones. The day-to-day effort of being in people’s lives, lifting their spirits and giving them hope is the way to a better, healthier, more productive life.

In His Memory

Copeland’s best-known act of mercy takes place day after day in a hallway separated from the dining room by a low wall. Today, nine people sit in the ubiquitous, blue plastic chairs that line the walls, and soak their feet in blue plastic tubs of hot, soapy water. Wearing rubber gloves, she kneels her 62-year-old body down before her guests and gently massages and scrubs their swollen, aching, bruised, blistered, grimy, often infected feet. She gently dries each pair of feet, wipes them with ointment, then provides a clean pair of white socks and—if necessary—new shoes. •Copeland explains that the foot washing wasn’t her idea; Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, and she’s just following suit.

“I’m doing this in His memory,“ she says. “We’re commanded to be servants of the poor, and what better sign can we give than to wash their feet?“

To watch this, one may experience conflicting emotions. There’s revulsion at the thought of touching feet made awful by years on the street. There’s a strange embarrassment at intruding on what seems to be a moment of private, personal connection. Yet, when you see the satisfaction that both Mary Jo and her guests seem to feel, there’s perhaps the oddest bit of envy—an unexplainable sense that perhaps someday, if you’re found worthy, you too might get to wash a vagrant’s feet.

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