Roarke Center: A place of welcome, food and art for the needy people of Troy

According to center director Sister Hilary Davis, DC, the poor in Troy have declared their need to be creative and find dignity.

The Roarke Center, staffed by members of three different religious orders, opened in March in the former St. Anthony's school building, with seed funding from the Daughters of Charity. Since then, the drop-in center for the poor has earned a $150,000 grant from the Daughters of Charity National Health System, sponsors of Seton Health System of Troy -- and about 200 guests each month.

Cuddling a young guest at the center, an infant being babysat by the staff while his father worked, Sister Hilary explained that the Daughters of Charity didn't want to duplicate services offered by other organizations. The order did an assessment of the city of Troy before starting the center, taking to the streets to ask the poor there what they needed.

"The whole focus was not to begin with a bunch of programs and say, `This is what we have; come.' The programs are a reflection of what people have said they need," the director stated.

One of those requests was "dignity" -- so the Roarke Center's first program was a food cooperative. Guests receive a membership card to the center that entitles them to shop for their own groceries in the roomful of food; but they must do several hours of volunteer work each month to earn "points" toward their choices.

Brother James Welch, OFM, worked in the building when it was St. Anthony's food pantry. "It was check the name off, hand them a bag and [they're] out the door," he remembered. Once in a while, he would hear that a guest was in trouble, but he had little contact with them outside the center.

Today, the Franciscan brother chats with guests as they shop at the food co-op. If a guest mentions having high blood pressure, Brother James explains the sodium levels in a can of beans and encourages them to choose something else.

"When I was just handing out food, there was something missing," the brother said. "Now, I work with the clients, and it's a friendship."

Sister MaryAnn Millett, CSJ, a novice St. Joseph sister who works at the center once a week, notices some of the same faces there that she sees at a nearby soup kitchen. "The same people come here, and you call them by name, and they have a job to do," she said.

Down the hall from the food co-op, Sister Loretta Hoag, DC answers another of the poor's requests: creativity. In a cluttered former classroom, tables of unpainted ceramic figurines await new owners. Sister Loretta's rule: "They can only have it if they paint it."

"The poor need to be creative," stated Sister Hilary. In an effort to fill basic needs, she explained, services often give poor people lives based on function alone.

Sister Loretta provides the form. Once, a new guest stopped by and asked whether she could get a ceramic ant. The woman was nervous and could not make eye contact with the staff -- until Sister Loretta began to shape an ant out of clay.

As the guest watched, her story tumbled out: an infant son nicknamed "Andrew the Ant," who had passed away some time before. The mother had always wanted a ceramic ant "for my baby's grave."

By the time Sister Loretta presented her with the clay ant, the guest had forgotten not to make eye contact. "She was looking right at her," boasted Sister MaryAnn.

Aside from those programs, the Roarke Center has a clothing room that works under the same point system as its food co-op, a sewing program, a toy library -- even a mascot, a gray cockatiel named Big Bird who chirps at guests and likes to perch on fingers.

One of the center's most popular services is its literacy program. Brother James remembered its most elderly member, a senior citizen who had raised children and grandchildren and held the same job for more than 30 years without being able to read.

After struggling to read an article on St. Francis of Assisi, "She's like, `I did it!'" said Brother James. "She was like a kid in a candy store."

Four staff members, a half-dozen volunteers, and several students from Russell Sage College getting course credit work at the center. The volunteers have the understanding that all guests are welcome, said Sister Hilary: "Their behavior is not what they are. Everybody who comes through the door has potential. There's a young man who comes here who does crack pretty regularly, but it doesn't make him worthless. I ache for him."

Many successes have marked the Roarke Center's debut. Sister Hilary remembered a guest who found a job and paid back the $10 the center had lent her; Sister MaryAnn pointed out a poem written by another guest that spoke of finding freedom and pride.

Still, harsh realities are dealt with every day at the center. One-quarter of its guests are illiterate; many lack basic living skills in addition to job skills. Sister Hilary once asked a guest to measure some rugs for her and then discovered that the young man didn't know how to read a tape measure.

"How can he possibly get a job?" she said. The director got down on the floor with the guest and taught him to measure inches and feet, but still remembers that "moment of, `Oh, my God, this is what it's about.'"

In addition to the struggle to model living skills for guests, there is the larger question of funding. "We get some private funding, but we're not eligible for any public assistance yet -- and we didn't want to compete with the existing programs," Sister Hilary said. "It's hardest to get money for operational expenses: rent, maintenance."

Welfare reform legislation has also put a drain on the center's resources, said Brother James. "Because of the budget cuts in Washington, we're seeing an increase in clients. It's getting very difficult, and it's going to get worse."

However, the center's staff is moving ahead with plans to improve services. A 12-step program will start in January, and Sister Hilary hopes to open the building's gymnasium for area youth.

"First, we stop and treat people as human beings," she said. "We're doing it bit by bit."

(The Roarke Center is located at 107 4th St., Troy, NY 12180-3916. Call 273-8351.)

(11-20-97)