The Battle Against Deprivation, on a Small Scale and Large : The War Against Hunger in America Draws Its Ranks of Fighters From Some Unlikely Sources : Teen-Ager’s One-Day Mini Soup Kitchen Jells Into a Weekly Luncheon Special

Forty-eight cups of turkey soup changed Matthew Weaver’s life.

That was how much food the 18-year-old University High School senior showed up with when he began feeding the homeless in downtown Los Angeles last Thanksgiving weekend.

Four months later, Weaver has escalated to hundreds of baloney and cheese sandwiches, oranges and bags of potato chips.

Weaver and his sister Melanie--with help from friends and the moral support of their father--have turned an impromptu and tentative act into an institution, or what passes for an institution for those on the margins of society.

Now, each Sunday, when the Weavers’ red Pontiac and black Lincoln pull up at the intersection of 1st Street and Broadway, the street people are waiting. Within moments of seeing those fancy automobiles they’re lined up two abreast, ready to take at least one, often two, sometimes three of the bag lunches the Weavers spent the morning making.

That was the scene last Sunday when a couple of hundred of the homeless--a racially mixed group of men of all ages, dressed in clothes ranging from rags to flamboyant T-shirts--turned up for the Weavers’ handouts. And with slight variations it has happened every Sunday since late last November, Matthew says.

The obvious question, of course, is why? Why would a couple of well-to-do kids who seem to have everything they need or want--including blond good looks, high-priced cars and a spectacular roof over their heads in the Hollywood Hills--suddenly decide to stop sleeping late on Sundays and start up a Skid Row version of a fast-food restaurant?

The answer isn’t simple or direct. And it seems to be evolving, as the Weavers have more and more contact with the people on the streets. For instance, they are planning to expand to two meals a week and they have dreams that they will somehow lure others to join them or start similar projects. But not everyone wholeheartedly approves. Some who work with the homeless full time say projects such as this can be detrimental and disruptive. And the Weavers themselves have had a minor brush with the police that has made them more wary on the streets.

In interviews, the Weavers spoke repeatedly of that first weekend as a milestone in their lives, the weekend that Matthew acted on an idea that had been haunting him since shortly after the family moved here from New York last summer.

The initial spark, Matthew recalled, was a newspaper story about the homeless in Pershing Square. The article coalesced his vague feelings into a specific plan, he noted.”I had been looking for something to do and I had put it off all summer and finally after Thanksgiving I thought about, you know, just cutting up the turkey. So we just made turkey soup out of it and the first weekend we did about 48 cups of soup,” he said.

At First, Ignorance

Gordon Weaver--who is president of Y&R; Entertainment, a division of the advertising firm of Young & Rubicam, and currently works with Disney Studios--remembered the first foray as a demonstration of their ignorance.

“We were fairly pathetic that first weekend looking for homeless people, because we really didn’t know the area and which way to go,” he said.

Indeed, after passing out all their soup to the homeless they managed to identify and intercept, the Weavers had a false sense of accomplishment.

“The first weekend we went down we felt like we pretty much covered everybody,” Matthew said, adding that he told his father, “ ‘I think we pretty much got it, Dad.’ ”

For the first few weeks, it seems clear, the Weavers weren’t sure what they were doing. It was a kind of charity lark that they might drop at any time and get on back to their real lives.

“In the beginning, it didn’t seem like a very definite thing,” Matthew said. “It was like, we can’t do this forever, I’ve got to go to college. It was something nice to do once a week. Then one weekend we showed up and there was a line of 500 guys waiting. . . . “

(Matthew now hopes to be admitted to USC as a film major next year so that he can maintain the project.)

Hands-Off Policy

Gordon Weaver kept a hands-off policy during this period, waiting to see what his son would do. “It was one of those things where he came to me and said he wanted to do it and I said wonderful,” he explained. “I didn’t pursue it because I wanted it to be his, not mine.” As for his son’s motivation, Weaver said, “I think he saw that he would make a difference. I think it comes down to something as simple as that. . . . It’s made a difference in him, it’s made a difference in my daughter, it’s made a difference in the people who help us. They’re much more aware that they can do things, that they don’t have to sit around.”

Over the months, the Weavers’ attachment to and identification with the homeless has grown. When they talk about their project, they are likely to edge into exhortation about or advocacy for street people.

For example, during an interview at their home, Melanie Weaver, who is 21, gestured at her surroundings, including the panoramic view of Los Angeles.

“It could be us (out on the streets),” she said. “It’s hard to say that, sitting in this gorgeous house with this gorgeous view. But it could be us or it could be friends of ours. . . . You cannot not care about them.”

Both Melanie and Matthew, who live with their divorced father, argue that direct action is better than writing a check to a charity.

“I think it’s a good thing to donate money but I’m just used to doing things the way we’ve done it,” Matthew said.

Melanie added, “We met a man (in downtown Los Angeles) from Yugoslavia or somewhere who barely spoke English. He was walking by and saw what we were doing and said, ‘Can I help you?’ He came up here with two pounds of bacon and three cans of sardines. See, what we want is for people not only to come and make the sandwiches but to go and talk to the guys, because no one really gives them the time of day.”

The Weavers haven’t gotten universal raves for their work. Some friends wonder what they think they’re doing, state police once questioned Matthew about the crowd scene he was creating and some who work at downtown missions are skeptical of the usefulness of such projects.

“We’re getting a lot of criticism from people--people we know, people back East--because they say you should be out solving the problem, not just passing out sandwiches,” Melanie said. “Some woman said, ‘You should go to church’ and I said, ‘This is my church,’ and she said, ‘Well, God isn’t going to forgive you for this.’ ”

Last Sunday the Weavers were apprehensive that they might be “hassled” by the California State Police, who have jurisdiction over the small state park at 1st Street and Broadway where the food is distributed. But no police materialized and Matthew shifted the line of waiting homeless out of the park and on to the adjacent sidewalk, which he said was not under state jurisdiction.

State Police Commander Robert Byrd remembers a sidewalk encounter with Matthew a few weeks ago as being “amicable.” One of his concerns, he said, was the maintenance of the park, which was left covered with the leavings of the Weavers’ lunches. Any organized activity in the park requires a permit, Byrd added.

Following his meeting with Byrd, Matthew said he obtained a permit for one week. But, he said, the permits have to be issued from Sacramento weekly and he has not applied for another because he dislikes paperwork. He does, however, acknowledge that his meals were creating a trash problem and he now asks some of the men he has fed to help pick up the paper bags, napkins and “sea of orange peels.”

Nonetheless, the Weavers are irked that what they see as their good intentions should run afoul of a bureaucracy, however minor that confrontation might be.

Gordon Weaver said he is chagrined that there has been any negative official reaction to their work “because we felt that we were trying to do something very positive and very good.” It’s more important to feed the homeless than to deal with “so many technicalities, a permit from Sacramento every week.”

Family Commitment

The senior Weaver quickly makes it evident that his family has developed a sense of involvement and commitment that borders on political action.

“Here is one group of people who are doing this little, teeny, small thing, but it is helping a group of people one day a week,” he said. “I think people like me and hundreds of other people should be encouraged to come down here . . . and feed them. Obviously, the missions can’t handle all this. . . . Otherwise, these people would not be here, they would be at the missions. Therefore, the city should be saying we encourage you to do this, we encourage you to get a group of advertising people who will do breakfasts on Monday morning. To feed a thousand people costs almost no money at all. It’s less than lunch at the Bistro (a Beverly Hills restaurant), and there are plenty of people who would be glad to give up a lunch at the Bistro in order to do this. But they can’t do it if they think they’re going to be harassed, have to get permits, go through politicians and do all this stuff.”

He estimated that the meals handed out Sunday cost only about $60 because they buy the food through a wholesaler.

Potential for Problems

However, distribution schemes such as the Weavers’ can have unintended effects and may interfere with the work of missions and centers for the homeless, said Jill Halverson, director of the Downtown Women’s Center.

In some cases, she said, food distributors have created pandemonium when they gave out meals to homeless men already lined up for a meal at a mission.

“They’d be better off buying food for one of the missions or else going into Watts or East L.A. or out in the (San Fernando) Valley where there’s nothing,” Halverson said.

Clancy Imislund of the Midnight Mission said he doesn’t object to voluntary food projects, so long as they don’t impinge on his operations. He noted that most food projects are sporadic and that a steady effort such as the Weavers is “kind of unusual,” adding, “How many times have we decided to do something noble and given up?”

The Weavers also admit that not all their experiences with the homeless have been entirely rewarding. Earlier this year, they took in a homeless family with several children, a step that soon proved to be a disaster, they said. When the Weavers took in the family, driving downtown at midnight to pick them up, they saw the offer of temporary shelter as a respite for the parents, a time for them to look for jobs and otherwise organize their lives. However, the parents made little effort and the Weavers quickly saw their offer of help turn into a case of freeloading, they said. Yet they have maintained relationships with the children, who have been placed in foster homes.

Ironically, Gordon Weaver at that time was working on the promotion of “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” a movie about what happens when a wealthy family adopts a homeless man.

Despite this experience, the Weavers remain non-judgmental about those who live on the street. “Maybe a lot of them could get a job, be a janitor or whatever,” Matthew said. “But how’re you going to tell (who could get a job)?”

There were no dissenters among those in line for sandwiches on Sunday. Yusel Love, who said he has been without shelter for two years, commented, “It’s great if you ain’t got no money and no place to eat. I think they have a little sympathy.”

Frank McCliman, who said he and his wife Debbie also have been outside for about two years, added, “I love every one of them.”

Summing up his project, Matthew said, “It takes nothing. You take the time for one football game away from a Sunday and you just do it. I didn’t think I was going to be able to keep it up because I’m not one for keeping things together. I’m kind of irresponsible, but it’s just something you don’t want to stop. . . . Now when I’m down there, guys say, ‘Hey, blondie, where’s your good-looking sister, where’s the Lincoln?’ It’s a good feeling. I’ve been depending on my dad all my life, just being a little brat. It’s good to know that I’ve got guys who depend on me and care about me.”