For the Needy, by the Needy

Orange County Food Bank volunteer Lisa Ornelas was pulled away from packing food boxes for the poor Wednesday and brought to a table filled with food.

“This is for you,” Food Bank director Jerry Sanders told Ornelas, as they stood before turkey, rice, corn bread, potatoes, oranges, apples, lettuce, eggs and bread at a Garden Grove warehouse.

Tears came to the eyes of the bashful volunteer, who without the donation would have been eating rice and beans today.

“Without this, Thanksgiving was going to be a regular day without a special meal,” said Ornelas, 35.

After years in and out of prison, she said, she is trying to get her life together and seeks redemption by helping to pack the 1,500 boxes of food given to the poor by the nonprofit organization each week.

“At the end of the month, there’s just not enough food in our house,” she said.

Though many people with comfortable incomes volunteer, particularly during the holidays, some who are needy themselves volunteer all year long, Sanders and others who work in social service agencies say.

At the Orange County Rescue Mission, which offers several thousand holiday meals today and will distribute 50,000 boxed meals between now and Christmas, “most of the people who are helping serve are not really wealthy,” said president Jim Palmer.

“Our typical donors are at middle-class level or below. They have a greater sense that they are only a paycheck from that kind of situation,” Palmer said.

Dennis Zaun, executive director of the Council of Orange County of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, said dozens of people who were formerly homeless, incarcerated, or addicted to drugs or alcohol have become volunteers at his organization.

The group oversees six thrift stores, the Second Harvest Food Bank and a center that helps incarcerated people and their families.

Volunteers who have experienced troubles “identify with the people. They have an extra dose of compassion. They can also sense a false story much better than I can,” Zaun said.

St. Vincent de Paul volunteer Anthony Gasper, 35, released from Los Angeles County Jail three months ago, has served time on charges of drug possession and sales. He is living in an Orange County halfway house with free room and board. Unable to find work, Gasper is volunteering.

“I see a few people who are in the same boat I was in,” he said.

“Since I began volunteering, I have no cravings. I’m keeping busy. It’s helping me, and it’s fun,” said Gasper, who helps process donated clothing for St. Vincent de Paul stores.

Norman Tucker, 48, and his wife live on disability checks totaling $1,500 a month. They recently became homeless and moved to an Orange County Catholic Worker shelter in Santa Ana. Tucker took on cooking many of the turkeys served to hundreds of people at the home Wednesday.

Volunteering “gives me the feeling that I am a blessing to other people,” Tucker said.

Arthur Blaustein, a professor of urban policy at UC Berkeley and author of a book about volunteering, said volunteers who are poor “have been there.”

“They develop a sense of empathy and compassion.”

When they volunteer, “it makes them feel very good about themselves,” Blaustein said.

At the Orange County Food Bank, Ornelas was one of 50 volunteers to receive a turkey because she is considered among the most needy and the most valuable to the organization.

Since August, Ornelas has volunteered three times a week packing boxes and doing paperwork. She’s trying to get a paying job but lacks work skills and finds it difficult to find an employer who will hire someone on parole.

Volunteering “is the first time I’ve put my feet on the ground,” she said.

While fighting an addiction to methamphetamines, she lived in motels when not in prison. She lost custody of her seven children.

Volunteering “is something I need to do. It’s giving back for what I took,” said Ornelas, whose sister has custody of one child. Ornelas lives in Anaheim with them, her mother and her sister’s husband.

When Ornelas gives out the boxes she packs, she says, she looks into the eyes of the recipients and thinks, “I am the same as you. I know how it feels.”