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Helping hands say a lot | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/25/2009
A pair of oversize gloves doesn't make sign language any easier.
With your fingers inside flimsy, opaque plastic that flutters and clings, the sign for chicken might look like true. And did she just sign water or what's wrong?
But if the food-service gloves were a modest inconvenience, none of the volunteers at the Aid for Friends outreach center in Northeast Philadelphia yesterday seemed to mind.
They were there to prepare food and food-service trays for sick and elderly shut-ins. Best of all, they were together again, signing and joking and sharing with friends who understand them like no others.
"This is exciting that we're going to be helping people we've never met," signed Denise Logan, a coordinator of religious education with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's Apostolate for the Deaf.
It was the first time at the center for most of the 22 deaf and hard-of-hearing youngsters and adults, who get together for activities about once a month, so they began by watching a video prepared by the center. As Logan signed vigorously alongside the TV, the video explained that Aid for Friends prepares and delivers meals to shut-ins, many of whom have no family or social network - what founder Rita Ungaro-Schiavone calls the "hidden hungry."
About once a week, volunteers deliver food trays, beverages, tubs of soup and other items to the homes of about 2,200 "friends" in Philadelphia and the four suburban counties in Pennsylvania. "True peace really does come from looking outside yourself," a home visitor on the video explained.
Those home visitors must have food to deliver, so the members of the apostolate were on hand to package foil trays and make soup.
"Older people like soup all year round," kitchen volunteer Cass Tweed, the "prep cook," told them as they donned the required gloves and caps in the giant kitchen.
Soon, about half the group was lined up along long, stainless steel tables, opening cans of concentrated vegetable or chicken-noodle soup, and pouring these into three-gallon tubs.
"We should have brought out Lucy and Ethel hats and a box of chocolates," joked Rose Olewnik, a reference to the famous candy-factory scene on I Love Lucy.
Into the tubs they poured cartons of chicken broth, added mixed vegetables, then ladled the contents into pint tubs, marking each cap with the date. These then went into giant freezers.
In a nearby room the rest of the group counted aluminum trays into sets of 50 and packed them into plastic bags.
At one table worked a half-dozen adults; at the other, adolescents and preteens.
Paul Thiergartner, 10, said in sign that he had never been to Aid to Friends before but added, "I love to volunteer" because "maybe it will help me prepare for a future job."
But the best part of these apostolate outings, he said, is that "I get to interact with my friends."
Interaction is important, said Debbie Hulme of the Northeast, who was here with her three children, ages 11, 14 and 16. Like her, all are deaf.
"It's nice to get the deaf and hard-of-hearing kids together," said Hulme, who communicates through speech and sign.
The apostolate, like the St. Philip Lutheran Church of the Deaf to which her family belongs, serves as a kind of "neighborhood" she said.
After about two hours the two groups had put together about 450 servings and assembled 3,000 trays into bags for delivery.
"I want to come back," said Maggie Canelli, 13, who signed wish or want by gliding a thumb and forefinger down her chest, and come back by sailing the forefingers of her right hand into her left palm.
The apostolate numbers about 900 members from all faiths and backgrounds, said Logan, who described members as "very close."
That reminded Maureen Hughes, 35, of Francesco "Frankie" Talarico, 20, who died in a car accident Jan. 9.
"Shall we dedicate today to Frankie?" she asked the kids in sign as they prepared to leave.
All nodded vigorously and raised their hands. "Yes."
A pair of oversize gloves doesn't make sign language any easier.
With your fingers inside flimsy, opaque plastic that flutters and clings, the sign for chicken might look like true. And did she just sign water or what's wrong?
But if the food-service gloves were a modest inconvenience, none of the volunteers at the Aid for Friends outreach center in Northeast Philadelphia yesterday seemed to mind.
They were there to prepare food and food-service trays for sick and elderly shut-ins. Best of all, they were together again, signing and joking and sharing with friends who understand them like no others.
"This is exciting that we're going to be helping people we've never met," signed Denise Logan, a coordinator of religious education with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's Apostolate for the Deaf.
It was the first time at the center for most of the 22 deaf and hard-of-hearing youngsters and adults, who get together for activities about once a month, so they began by watching a video prepared by the center. As Logan signed vigorously alongside the TV, the video explained that Aid for Friends prepares and delivers meals to shut-ins, many of whom have no family or social network - what founder Rita Ungaro-Schiavone calls the "hidden hungry."
About once a week, volunteers deliver food trays, beverages, tubs of soup and other items to the homes of about 2,200 "friends" in Philadelphia and the four suburban counties in Pennsylvania. "True peace really does come from looking outside yourself," a home visitor on the video explained.
Those home visitors must have food to deliver, so the members of the apostolate were on hand to package foil trays and make soup.
"Older people like soup all year round," kitchen volunteer Cass Tweed, the "prep cook," told them as they donned the required gloves and caps in the giant kitchen.
Soon, about half the group was lined up along long, stainless steel tables, opening cans of concentrated vegetable or chicken-noodle soup, and pouring these into three-gallon tubs.
"We should have brought out Lucy and Ethel hats and a box of chocolates," joked Rose Olewnik, a reference to the famous candy-factory scene on I Love Lucy.
Into the tubs they poured cartons of chicken broth, added mixed vegetables, then ladled the contents into pint tubs, marking each cap with the date. These then went into giant freezers.
In a nearby room the rest of the group counted aluminum trays into sets of 50 and packed them into plastic bags.
At one table worked a half-dozen adults; at the other, adolescents and preteens.
Paul Thiergartner, 10, said in sign that he had never been to Aid to Friends before but added, "I love to volunteer" because "maybe it will help me prepare for a future job."
But the best part of these apostolate outings, he said, is that "I get to interact with my friends."
Interaction is important, said Debbie Hulme of the Northeast, who was here with her three children, ages 11, 14 and 16. Like her, all are deaf.
"It's nice to get the deaf and hard-of-hearing kids together," said Hulme, who communicates through speech and sign.
The apostolate, like the St. Philip Lutheran Church of the Deaf to which her family belongs, serves as a kind of "neighborhood" she said.
After about two hours the two groups had put together about 450 servings and assembled 3,000 trays into bags for delivery.
"I want to come back," said Maggie Canelli, 13, who signed wish or want by gliding a thumb and forefinger down her chest, and come back by sailing the forefingers of her right hand into her left palm.
The apostolate numbers about 900 members from all faiths and backgrounds, said Logan, who described members as "very close."
That reminded Maureen Hughes, 35, of Francesco "Frankie" Talarico, 20, who died in a car accident Jan. 9.
"Shall we dedicate today to Frankie?" she asked the kids in sign as they prepared to leave.
All nodded vigorously and raised their hands. "Yes."