United Methodist 'Mother Teresa' gives needy a hand up
8/26/1998 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. NOTE: A photograph is available with this story. A UMNS News Feature By Woody Woodrick* JACKSON, Miss. -- At noon on the second, third and fourth Wednesday of each month, around 400 people gather behind Pratt Memorial United Methodist Church to receive food.
This gathering isn't a lunch-time prayer service, although many are growing spiritually. The people standing patiently in the summer heat come to get free food because otherwise they would likely go hungry.
For about six months, Pratt Memorial, a small, historic church in one of Jackson's most impoverished neighborhoods, has been the distribution center for the food program started by one of its members.
Lizzie Cooper, 61, began giving away food several years ago, after opening a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center several blocks from Pratt Memorial. She has been a member of Pratt Memorial for more than 40 years.
Cooper has been likened to Mother Teresa, the late Roman Catholic nun who ministered to the poor in Calcutta, India. Cooper began giving away food and other items after many of her rehab center clients came in needing assistance, such as money for rent, utilities and food.
She recently sold the building housing the rehab center to the state of Mississippi.
"In the meantime, we could not feed people a hot meal," she said. "I decided to give out bags of groceries. I decided to give out the groceries at Pratt, where we had more room."
So three times a month, people come for food, clothing and a "God bless you" from Cooper.
During the summer, when Jackson temperatures and humidity often push the heat index past 100 degrees, some clients bring umbrellas. They stand in a line that snakes downstairs to the church basement, where Cooper and volunteers take the clients' names and addresses and try to fill as many needs as possible. An average of 385 people come each week.
Marionette Taylor, a retired Jackson Public Schools teacher, is one of the volunteers. "I register people and pass out bags," Taylor said. "It seems each week we have more people coming."
Volunteers also deliver sacks of canned goods, vegetables and other items to the homes of people who can't pick up the supplies themselves. "I take five or six bags to people who don't have transportation," Taylor said.
Items given to the clients come from a variety of sources, but one in particular, Cooper said. "It comes from God first and from me second. I have a couple of wonderful people who help me."
Local churches pitch in. Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church provides books and other items. Van Winkle United Methodist also provides goods, and members at Pratt Memorial donate most of the clothing. Most of the food comes from the Mississippi Food Network.
Cooper mentioned Howard Baron, a member of Briarwood Presbyterian Church, as a benefactor. Baron helps her find all kinds of items, from food to appliances. Large items are stored in a building Cooper owns, then given to ex-homeless people who have turned their lives around.
"The rest comes from people who know of my work and call me. My mission covers any need a person has I can assist them in," Cooper said.
Most of those seeking aid have jobs, Cooper said. However, she said, they often have little education and survive as day laborers or in other low-paying jobs.
"We think just because a person's working they can afford these things. Once they pay the bills, there's not much left," Cooper said.
Cooper, a Jackson native, started her community service career in 1989 following her conversion to Christianity. She said she believes her efforts and those of others are making a difference.
"I see men who had left their wives because they couldn't help their families. They're coming back," Cooper said. "Mothers who had left their children with grandparents have come back and are raising their own children.
"I see where mothers were doing many things to feed their children. They can come here and do not have to belittle themselves to feed their children."
Her programs rely entirely on donations of goods, money and time. They receive no government funding. "If the government gives you money, they want you to just help with alcohol and drugs and not give out shoes," Cooper said. "We teach the Bible here."
Although the items people receive are free, she said her clients seek "a hand up, not a hand out."
As successful as the food program is, Cooper is not about to sit back and watch it run. She recently began a computer training program for children. Through contacts on community service boards and agencies on which she has been asked to serve, Cooper was able to secure six computers and other office supplies.
One of those working to make the goal a reality was Brad Pigott, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, who helped arrange financing.
"God is the only one who allows this to happen. God got the money from a program that was not doing anything and gave it to me," Cooper said.
Pigott said the funds came from the U.S. Justice Department's "Weed and Seed" program, which seeks to push criminals out of high-crime areas and support programs that restore neighborhoods.
"We got some Department of Justice funds to help equip her after-school program," he said. "These kids have nowhere else to go. They would just be out on the streets.
"She is the Mother Teresa of west Jackson," Pigott said of Cooper. "She is a one-of-a-kind social missionary who has resilience and who makes us feel useless. Lizzie will get you what you need. She will find a way to get it to you."
The program teaches computer skills to preschoolers to upper teens and targets children who were born addicted to drugs. Now, Cooper needs more volunteers to teach the children.
She has other needs, too. "I need canned goods of all types to continue to help feed people," she said. "For every case of food the Food Network gives us now, we have to buy so much. I really would like somebody to send small donations."
Cooper expects soon to have all her programs in three buildings right next to one another -- the rehab center, the computer learning center and a community kitchen.
People should not be so quick to condemn the less fortunate, she said. "We have starving people here in America. I would ask when people see brothers and sisters on the corner not to put them down but to see how they can help that person."
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*Woodrick is editor of the Mississippi United Methodist Advocate, the newspaper of the Mississippi Conference.
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