On Wheels and a Prayer

It’s daybreak, and the Catholic nun, with her white habit tucked beneath her and bike helmet snapped in place atop her veil, is riding along Santa Monica beach while amused beachgoers yell, “The nun is back!” That’s her again, sun barely risen, bicycling in Hancock Park and wishing a “good morning” to joggers and dog owners who smile and shake their heads in disbelief.

On the Lord’s day, it gets even better. Sister Alice Marie Quinn, the 66-year-old founder of one of the largest privately funded Meals on Wheels program in the nation, takes to biking down St. Vincent Medical Center’s bland hallways, her white robe blending in with the walls as the blue bike streaks by. This is the nun former Mayor Richard Riordan once called “L.A.’s Mother Teresa,” the same Daughters of Charity nun that television viewers have been seeing in the poignant “I’m an American” ads launched in late September.

“It’s a witness that nuns are normal,” says Sister Alice Marie about her decision to always wear her habit, even when she’s exercising. “It’s not me, Sister Alice Marie, that people see. It’s a nun. I think maybe they will think about God. I am who I am, and this is what we’re all about.”

To be sure, Sister Alice Marie--whose nickname is Sam--never loses sight of the vocation she discovered at 19 when she was in nursing school and one of the teaching sisters took her to visit poor people in El Paso. She vowed then to devote herself to the needy, a promise she has kept for nearly 25 years at St. Vincent in Los Angeles.

The Meals on Wheels program, under the auspices of the hospital, has served almost 12 million meals to L.A.’s poorest residents: homebound senior citizens, disabled and terminally ill patients, homeless adults and children. Every day, 98 employees and 100 volunteers prepare and deliver 2,500 meals (1,600 hot and 900 cold), driving 600 miles through some of the city’s grittiest downtown, South-Central and Hollywood neighborhoods.

“This is God’s program; it’s not mine,” she says, sitting in her cramped but very organized office in a St. Vincent annex near downtown Los Angeles. “If you trust your worries to him, he will take care of you. I told God that if he gets us the money, I’ll do the work. I love the work, and he does see that the money comes through.”

It’s a hard position to dispute, considering that in 1989, Meals on Wheels owed the hospital, which underwrites the program, $564,000. The board told her that she could not accept more clients until the debt was repaid. Sister Alice Marie argued with them, troubled by the notion that hungry people would go unfed.

“God will take care of us,” she assured the board and then went home to pray. The next day, a lawyer called her with the news that a Glendale woman had bequeathed the sale of her estate to the program. A check for $566,000 was in the mail. Two years later, when a dishwasher broke, Sister Alice Marie bought a heavy-duty one for $6,000, fully aware that she did not have the money to pay for it. The next morning, she bought a bingo game card at Ralph’s and hit the jackpot: a choice of $5,000 in cash or a trip to Australia for two.

“God sent us that money,” she says matter-of-factly. “People asked me if he sent me the money, why didn’t he send all of it? I told them that God doesn’t pay taxes and installation fees. It was a miracle. Nobody wanted to talk to me that morning,” she says.

“It’s weird and scary to know that God is always so close. So you have to be really good. I try to be really good. It’s not easy for me.” Mischief has always commanded Sister Alice Marie’s personality. She still gets a kick from childhood stories of her tomboy days when she competed with her four siblings for attention and got caught in a bayou’s quicksand; when she broke her leg; or when she fell into a construction ditch. A self-proclaimed Daddy’s little girl who never got along with her strict mother, Sister Alice Marie grew up wondering if her mother was right: that she was destined to fail.

“I always was in trouble,” she says and laughs. “When my mom told me not to do something, that’s the first thing I’d do. But if you think about it, it’s served me well. I don’t go through all the hoops they’d like me to go through around here. Things just take too long that way. I figure it’s a lot easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.”

As the program’s executive director, Sister Alice Marie manages a $5.2-million budget with ease but has no five-year plan because “God never tells me what he wants that far in advance.” The nonprofit program is funded entirely through donations.

Skilled at pep talks and raising money, she is more comfortable in the kitchen, crafting menus and supervising the ultra-efficient assembly line of trays. She offers the only meals program in the city with meals tailored to the dietary needs and wants of every client--and no waiting list.

The only requirement to receive the meals is that the person be homebound. Financial hardship is not necessary (clients who can afford to make donations do so on a sliding scale), and religion is irrelevant.

“I like this program particularly because it’s so inclusive of everybody,” said Shirley Jackson, president of the program’s fund-raising auxiliary. “If you don’t have anyone that can do something for you, if you’re isolated, this program will help you. Sister Alice Marie is a real humanitarian. She’s innovative, gentle and blustery at the same time.”

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Without a doubt, Sister Alice Marie’s biggest love is her clients; nothing pleases her more than delivering some of the meals herself on Saturdays, hitting at least 30 homes to check on the well-being of those who depend on her. On their birthdays, clients receive handwritten cards with a cake and candle so “they know this day is different,” says the sister, who admits she usually celebrates her own birthday for the entire month of June. On other holidays, she sends clients handwritten prayers, as well as candies, desserts and meals to commemorate special occasions.

“I’ve never met her, but we get such nice letters and prayers from her,” said Hollywood resident Lois Weber, 81, who has been a client for four years. “She always sends a little reminder of the occasion, and it’s so darling and cute. I would love to meet her because I have been able to keep my independence, thanks to her.”

Carla Laemmle, 92, a client since 1989, was the recipient of the program’s 10 millionth meal. She also takes advantage of the program’s Operation Clean Sweep--a cleaning service--to tidy up her two-bedroom Hollywood home. “Sister Alice Marie is just an angel on Earth,” said Laemmle, niece of the legendary Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Studios. “I would do just anything for her because without her, I’d be pretty lost.”

These days, Sister Alice Marie’s time for personal visits is limited because her schedule is crammed with meetings and appearances to raise $30 million for next year’s planned expansion of a new kitchen and Hotel Dieu, or Hotel God, a 107-bed home on the grounds of St. Vincent for her neediest senior clients.

“She wants the money to come in on its own so that she can do what she likes to do, which is feed the hungry,” said Tom Raycraft, executive director of the medical center’s fund-raising foundation. “She’s very good at talking to donors when she lets herself do it. But she always says God will take care of it. I tell her that God will provide a little more if we work harder. She just laughs at me. I’ve been around her long enough to believe her. The things that have happened have been amazing.”

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Some say it is good luck; others credit her leadership skills. Those who work with her most closely, and are her friends, view it as evidence of her direct link to God.

“If you could be around her in times of trouble, trials and tribulations and hear her say, ‘Don’t worry. God will take care of you,”’ says Frank Kolbash, the program’s assistant director. “She believes it with all her heart. All of those around her are saying, ‘Are you sure?’ But for her, there’s no question. It’s God’s work. That ability to trust in him completely is a gift from God.”

Self-effacing and quick-witted, Sister Alice Marie also takes great pleasure in treating herself to dinners out. It was at a restaurant table in Los Feliz, 11 days after the terrorist attacks, that a production crew walked up to the weary nun as she waited for a restaurant table in Los Feliz. “We don’t have any of your kind,” a production assistant said to her. She raised her eyebrows in response but eventually agreed to participate in the nonprofit American Ad Council’s “I’m An American” spots.

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Her mission to care for and feed the poorest of the poor in Los Angeles began in 1977 when she was a bored assistant dietitian at St. Vincent. She had been in charge of hospital kitchens for 15 years in New Orleans and San Francisco, and being second in command did not sit well with her. When her supervisor instructed her “to find a need,” she began delivering meals (with food she “borrowed” from the hospital cafeteria) to patients recently discharged from the hospital.

She found herself among the downtrodden in Hollywood in a starkly different role than the one she had envisioned for herself as a star-struck teenager obsessed with the glossy celebrity magazines of the ‘40s and ‘50s and movie stardom.

“God heard me all right, but he sent me to Hollywood in a completely different capacity,” says Sister Alice Marie, who grew up in Chicago and now lives in a convent near St. Vincent. “We need to be open and willing to see what comes our way. I never imagined this. I found myself in neighborhoods with dilapidated houses and seedy hotels. These old people were living in horrible conditions. There was also a center I would go to where they served food for seniors, and they had to struggle on their walkers and canes to stand in line for their trays. I just didn’t think that was right. What a way to treat these people.”

At Precious Blood Church, in Los Angeles, the nun with the bachelor’s degree in nursing and certification as a dietitian found her place. She convinced the priest to let her serve an afternoon supper for 85 seniors twice a week. The first day, she cooked the meatloaf, mashed potatoes and peas herself and used volunteers to serve. By the second day, a retired cook asked to be the program’s chef, and the meals were expanded to five days. Each day, more seniors came, until six months later the program outgrew the parish hall and Sister Alice Marie and a volunteer began delivering the meals.

“One lady drove, and I ran in and delivered to 24 clients,” she says. “We had no idea what we were doing. I remember one lady was very cranky and unpleasant. By the second week, her disposition had changed. It was the first time in my life, I could see that nutrition does help a lot. It also made a difference that someone was coming by to check on them. Most of these people don’t see anybody else all day. This kind of work is a miracle every day.”

And the sister means literally every day. Since July 7, 1977, Sister Alice Marie’s kitchen has been open seven days a week, including times of crisis such as earthquakes and the 1992 riots. That’s when her clients need her the most, she said, because “this is about more than dishing up food.”

“I’m in such awe of her,” says Daryl Twerdahl, a member of the program’s auxiliary.

“I’m in awe that we have that much need in Los Angeles, and I’m in awe that she can fill that need. She feels very strongly about the dignity with which all people should be treated. I’ll admit I grew up in rural Arkansas where nuns were very suspect. But this one just turns your idea of a nun upside down.”