Food and Charity : Church With an Open Door

Daphne is a typical client at Imani Unidos, a feeding project of Faith United Methodist Church, located near Western Avenue and Century Boulevard. She is HIV-positive and poor--no one in the program has an income of more than $700 a month in a city where the average two-bedroom apartment rents for more than $700.

Today, she is doing the weekly grocery shopping for herself and her husband. She comes to the church basement and checks items off a list of available products. She hands the list to Genevieve Kyle, a volunteer from the church, who then wheels a shopping cart up and down two short aisles and picks the choices off the shelves.

Here are this week’s groceries: one can each of corn, sweet peas, pears, peaches, tuna, spaghetti with meat sauce, beef tamales and Beefaroni; one box each of chicken noodle soup, macaroni and cheese and plain macaroni; a couple of frozen beef-and-bean burritos; half of a frozen chicken; about a pound of frozen ground beef; a frozen chicken pot pie; some frozen lunch meat; frozen grape juice; a box of cereal; a loaf of bread; some eggs, and a box of Jell-O.

“Until we found out about this place,” Daphne says, “we didn’t know where our food was coming from.”

Since September of last year, the organization has quietly been serving people who fit its demanding profile--Los Angeles County residents who either have AIDS or are HIV-positive and meet the income restrictions.

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Its name-- imani is Swahili for “faith”; unidos is Spanish for “united”--reflects both the name of the church that houses and supports it and the diverse community it serves here in this neighborhood hard under the LAX flight path.

“We want to be inclusive,” says project director Antonio LeMons. And that goes beyond mere ethnicity. “This church has a mission of reconciling the congregation, and that means it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or lesbian or what, its doors are open.”

In fact, it was that vision, espoused by First United’s minister, the Rev. Andrew Robinson-Gaither, that attracted LeMons to the project. Coming off a two-year project surveying homelessness for the Rand Corp. and the death from AIDS of his companion, LeMons was looking for a quiet place to land and regroup. Then a member of the church’s board of directors began telling him about Imani Unidos, which was still in the planning stages.

“I got very excited about the fact that here was a mainstream church getting involved in the issues of HIV and AIDS,” he says. “After listening to the pastor here speak, I was even more excited by his vision.”

The vision he had seen at other churches did not measure up to what he had hoped for.

“When I listen to the Gospel, what I hear is love and concern. To be cold-hearted and non-compassionate is not what I would expect,” he says. “But that’s the way most churches have been. The black church, specifically, is still in denial about this. The black community is in denial about it. It’s this fear of acknowledging homosexuality. ‘If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.’ They pretend AIDS isn’t here and they pretend homosexuality is not part of their community.

“But the pastor here is very progressive, he already had an AIDS ministry when I came. It is absolutely unusual and he is very good and getting people involved. This church has stepped out and done it.”

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Not that everything has gone smoothly. Congregation member Kyle, a grandmotherly type who softly reminds a visitor: “Next time you come back, work,” says the idea took some getting used to. “It’s very rewarding helping people who need it,” she says. “This is not something we can close our eyes to, though I have to admit it was a shock at first.”

For many other church members, it is still something of a shock. There is no sign announcing Imani Unidos’ presence--either inside or outside the church--and LeMons says he has to be circumspect in talking about the project.

“I have to protect my patients’ confidentiality, somehow,” he says, “just to make them feel more comfortable. I have people who come here who are living at home and their mothers don’t know they’re sick!

“You know, sometimes people will walk in off the street and they’re shocked, shocked !” he says. “There used to be a WIC program (a supplemental nutrition program for children and pregnant women) running here a couple of years ago, so once in a while someone will see people coming out of here with grocery bags and they’ll come in and say very matter-of-factly, ‘I’m here for my free groceries.’

“I try to be subtle in how I handle it. I try to tell them it’s not the same program without telling them what it is. I’ll ask which agency referred them or who their caseworker is. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll just say ‘Look, this program is specifically for people who are HIV-positive or have . . .’ and before I even get to say AIDS, they’re out of here. I’ve never seen free groceries become so undesirable so fast.”

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And so LeMon’s “quiet place to land” has turned out to be a bit more stressful than he’d expected. But he takes pride in the fact that he’s making a difference not only in people’s nutritional outlook but their emotional state too. Of the program’s 112 current clients, he points out, he knows 107 by name.

“I try to make people feel comfortable and feel like human beings,” he says. “I really think if you’re getting treated the wrong way, if you’re made to feel small and dirty, it’s just as bad for your health as if you’re not getting any help at all.”

Imani Unidos, a project of Faith United Methodist Church, 1713 W. 108th St., Los Angeles, (213) 754-2320.

Special Needs: Personal care items such as toothpaste, mouthwash and razors, and office equipment, especially computer with laser-printer, fax machine and copier.