javahog
05-27-2009, 10:53 AM
Mary Ann "Mother" Wright has been a local hero for decades in the Bay Area. Using her own kitchen and starting with her social security checks, she fed scores of people. She passed on this month at 87, but her good work lives on and she deserves to be remembered.
(For the whole story: http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_12326298)
*snip*
"There's so much work to do," Wright said in a 2007 interview with the Oakland Tribune. She said God told her in a dream one night in 1980 to feed the hungry.
"I woke up screaming that night and never went back to sleep," she said. "How could I go back to sleep under my warm blankets when my sisters and brothers were out there lying under the bridges and places with nowhere to go?"
Wright had known need herself. She grew up poor in Louisiana and lost her mother when she was only 5 years old. In 1950 she fled an abusive husband and took her children by train to Oakland where other relatives lived.
She picked cotton, walnuts and strawberries in the East Bay and around the state, and also worked nights in a San Leandro cannery to make ends meet. She eventually married again and ended up with 12 children.
When she was "called" to feed the hungry, she started out as best she could, using her $236 Social Security check to buy food for a weekly dinner in Jefferson Park.
She expanded to other areas of town, trudging beneath overpasses to deliver meals "with dignity," she said, even spreading out table cloths and wrapping forks in napkins.
*snip*
Others eventually joined her work, and The Mother Wright Foundation was created. This one woman with nothing improved countless lives...
(For the whole story: http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_12326298)
*snip*
"There's so much work to do," Wright said in a 2007 interview with the Oakland Tribune. She said God told her in a dream one night in 1980 to feed the hungry.
"I woke up screaming that night and never went back to sleep," she said. "How could I go back to sleep under my warm blankets when my sisters and brothers were out there lying under the bridges and places with nowhere to go?"
Wright had known need herself. She grew up poor in Louisiana and lost her mother when she was only 5 years old. In 1950 she fled an abusive husband and took her children by train to Oakland where other relatives lived.
She picked cotton, walnuts and strawberries in the East Bay and around the state, and also worked nights in a San Leandro cannery to make ends meet. She eventually married again and ended up with 12 children.
When she was "called" to feed the hungry, she started out as best she could, using her $236 Social Security check to buy food for a weekly dinner in Jefferson Park.
She expanded to other areas of town, trudging beneath overpasses to deliver meals "with dignity," she said, even spreading out table cloths and wrapping forks in napkins.
*snip*
Others eventually joined her work, and The Mother Wright Foundation was created. This one woman with nothing improved countless lives...