Feeding the hungry at Kusina ni Sta. Marta

(PART 1)
Virginia Barric, 70, roams the streets of Cebu City looking for trash.

She carries plastic bags where she keeps discarded tin cans and plastic bottles to sell to scrap buyers.

Life as a laundrywoman in Toledo City is something she left behind hoping for a better life.

“Nianhi ko sa siyudad aron manimpalad. Nangita ko og basura. Naningkamot man ko pero dili gyud paigo. (I came to Cebu City to try my luck. I look for trash. I struggle hard but I don’t earn enough),” she said.

Blind in one eye from birth, Barric lives in an abandoned building downtown. Every weekend she looks forward to going some place where she can eat a free hot meal.

People like Barric who are down on their luck, street beggars, the homeless, and poor gather every Saturday and Sunday noon in the compound of the Caritas building beside the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.

From 9 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. smoke rises from the kitchen as four people prepare lunch at the Kusina Plus Panaderia Ni Sta. Marta, a feeding center of the Archdiocese of Cebu, which started in 2009.

In a day, 250 to 300 people, young and old, are served a hearty lunch of rice, juice, and two viands.

No questions are asked about where they come from, how much they earn for a living or even if they are Catholic.

Donations from generous benefactors keep the feeding center going.

On the wall is a poster with a reminder from Vatican II: “Feed the man dying of hunger because if you have not fed him, you have killed him.”

Sta. Marta refers to “Martha”, one of two sisters in the Bible who received Jesus in their home during his visit in Bethany. In the parable, Martha was the sister who was busy serving and attending to him while her sister Mary sat at his feet listening to his teaching.

When Cebu Daily News visited the center in July, 30-year-old Ryan Gedorio, a volunteer cook, was preparing rice in two large rice cookers.

Three other cooks came and began slicing chicken meat, garlic, onions, and other spices for sotanghon (vermicelli noodles) soup and ngohiong, prepared in three large frying pans.

“We have to distribute everything we cook. They can eat as much as they want until supply lasts as long as they come before 2 p.m.,” said Gedorio.

Cooks prepare two viands per session. Some days its afritada (braised pork in tomato sauce), humba (stewed pork), ngohiong and lumpia (pork spring rolls), pancit, spaghetti, or embutido.

By 11 a.m., a small crowd was quietly lining up outside the center.

There was no pushing or shoving as people fell in line to receive a plastic plate heaped with rice and viands. Since there’s no space for tables and chairs, men, women and children look for a spot to eat standing or sitting on the pavement in the compound.

Before they started to eat, a female cook asked everyone to pause as she said a short prayer of blessing and thanks. The people were served fried lumpia, sotanghon noodles, juice in an ice candy tube and rice. The plates and utensils are later collected and washed.

About 25 kilos of rice, 15 kilos of meat, spices, and jars of cold juice are prepared for one feeding session.

Gedorio, who works in a canteen in Cebu City on weekdays, has kitchen duty on weekends and receives an allowance of P250 for each feeding day.

“I’m very happy doing this. I have a chance to meet different kinds of people who don’t get to eat regularly. I feel blessed that I’m not in that situation,” he said.

“We are here for service. At the end of the day, I just realize that I’m able to help people,” said Gedorio, a native of Alegria town. (Part 2: Dream come true)