ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : The Needy Lose a Champion

“Brother Michael,” as he called himself, probably would have hated the eulogies Tuesday at his funeral. He could only have tolerated them if they inspired someone to take over his mission in life: to feed the poor.

Every day but Sundays, for three decades, Michael Dwaileebe made it his job to distribute day-old bread, beans, rice--anything he could find--to those who were in need. From time to time he had to find another location, but he never failed to find a way. In the end, more than 150 people--a number that was growing, much to his sadness--came for food in the parking lot of South Coast Christian Church in Costa Mesa. Dwaileebe was with them until the morning of his death Friday of a heart attack.

Dwaileebe, who was 80 when he died, was a successful real-estate investor before a religious conversion in 1959. “The Bible said sell all you have and give it to the poor,” he once told The Times. And so, eventually, he did, all $500,000 of it. At first Dwaileebe fed a few people by placing boxes of food outside his office. When his own money was gone, he tirelessly sought donations of goods and money as well as volunteers. One longtime friend said Dwaileebe was anguished that “in such a wealthy place as Orange County there were so few people contributing.”

His daughter, Donna Dwaileebe, said he greatly feared that his efforts would die with him. Already this week the food supply was dwindling. Dwaileebe lived his life according to two basic tenets: One person can make a difference, and, what happens to one of us happens to all of us. He asked nothing for himself, only that others not forget the needy.