the rix mix

Sister Jean Webster, the Atlantic City resident who made it her life’s mission to feed the hungry, died Monday afternoon at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, City Campus. She had turned 76 on Friday.

Webster had been feeding the hungry for about 25 years, first from her modest home on Indiana Avenue and later from the First Presbyterian Church, which shares a facility with the Victory Deliverance Church, where she was a member. She received national recognition for her efforts.

“My mother was full of compassion for the people,” said her daughter, Cecilia Woodard, pastor of Win International Ministries in Meridian, Miss. “She called them her guests. They were not homeless, they were her guests, and right up to the end, she was concerned about her guests.

Press of Atlantic City

Extraordinary soul. Her kitchen feeds  as many as 400 each day, Monday to Friday. Photographer Noah Addis has a Sister Jean's Kitchen photo series at Corbis. Photographer Joel Gordon also has a Sister Jean's kitchen photo series.

Such single-minded commitment to alleviating one kind of suffering, one day at a time, meal-by-meal. Certainly, early on, people were telling her (I probably would've been one) she couldn't go on trying to  feed all comers out of her own home, breaking city codes & no doubt driving some of her neighbors crazy. I suspect she was not an easy person to be around, that she just said to help her or get out of her way. There's a similar woman in Elizabeth, a nun compelled  to do something about homelessness, & she got started in much the same way, & eventually had to get herself organized.

Labels: Atlantic City, in the news, obituary