It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon and Port Coquitlam’s Trinity United Church is a beehive of activity.

Joyce Lissimore is the Queen Bee as she buzzes around the weekly food bank at Shaughnessy Street and Prairie Avenue.

The church hall is filled with people who have come for the soup kitchen. There’s another long line-up for food hampers.

Some of the food bank’s clients socialize in the parking lot and there are plenty of hugs from Lissimore and the other volunteers.

Some clients arrive on foot, others by bicycle with a trailer or milk crate to carry supplies. Still more are driven by volunteers. There are also a few moms and dads with little ones showing up because even if they have a job, it’s so low paying that they can’t afford to pay both the rent and the food bill, says Lissimore.

On Wednesday afternoons, Trinity is transformed into a community centre for the homeless, with Share Family Community Services providing food there as well as two other locations in Port Moody and Coquitlam.

Lissimore and her team provide other services. The third Wednesday of every month, there’s a foot clinic and a street nurse comes in. She will cut hair and even fill out tax returns for clients (recently, she handled one for a man who hadn’t filed in seven years).

“This is a business that’s growing but it’s one you don’t want to grow,” says Lissimore, who said she sees new faces every week.

Six years ago, about 50 clients showed up. Now, there are 150 to 175 but, since they’re only allowed to come once every two weeks, that puts the actual clientele at more than 300.

JACK & JOHNNY

Those receiving and giving help at the Trinity food bank have stories to tell.

Jack loads some groceries into his weathered 1980s van. Wielding a baguette in a long, thin, brown paper bag, he jokes, “No, it’s not loaded.”

Jack has been living out of the van for a year and has been coming to the food bank for two years.

“They’re the finest people in the world around here,” he says. “And the people that run it are a fine bunch of people. Their hearts are in the right place.”

Johnny, who like Jack is a thin older man with straggly hair, says he has been living within a one-mile radius of the church for 17 years. He has fun hanging out chatting with other clients and the volunteers.

“I come for the camaraderie,” he declares. “I know all these people. I’m happy.”

He gets a hug from Lissimore, who recently got Johnny some glasses because he couldn’t read without them.

PEOPLE CHANGE

Art Long runs a flea market out of the back of his battered pickup truck. It’s not a real flea market because all the goods he’s peddling are free.

On this day, he’s handing out hand sanitizers, soap, cough candies, toothbrushes, toothpaste, clothes, books and smiles. One dilemma organizers have is finding space to store all the donations that come from the community. A surprised Long recently picked up 27 garbage bags full of name-brand clothing from an elementary school.

A few years ago, belts were in big demand because so many of the clients were sick and skinny. But the soup kitchen and food bank have reduced the demand.

“I see people change.” says Long, a retired forestry worker.

He figures of the 75 to 80 people he dealt with when he first started volunteering in 2006, fewer than 10 still show up because the rest have found part-time work or shelter, or help for their mental or addiction problems.

Trust can be an issue for many of the food bank’s clientele, says Long.

Last year a young woman came to the food bank and he would greet her with a friendly, “Hi.” But she would just look and nod in response without saying a word. After about four months, she came to the food bank and just started talking to him like he was a long, lost friend, telling him she’d got a part-time job, but was still staying at a shelter.

Eventually, she got her own place and stopped coming. But last November, she showed up again and said to Long, “I just want you to know I’m getting my kids back for Christmas.”

Says Long, as he puts his fist to his mouth to hold back the emotions, “That still chokes me up. You get one of those and it carries you for a long time.”

Another time, Long had some work boots to give out that fit one man. He came back seven days later to say because of the boots, he had got a job. He returned about a year after that to tell Long he had become a supervisor at his workplace.

“Two years ago, there was every expectation he would be dead,” Long says, “but he got clean and sober for a year and got work.”

SCARED SOBER

Organizers gave out 18 hampers to homeless people last week that contain things such as toilet paper, socks and canned food with pull-up tops because most of the homeless don’t have a can opener. Often thrown in are items such as peanut butter, tuna and soft fruit, the latter because many have teeth missing.

That statement is Doreen’s cue to display her smile with only two upper teeth. A few years ago, she got clean and sober, and left for Vancouver, where she had a job at a recovery home. But when she lost that job, she came back to PoCo and started staying with friends, which proved to be a bad idea.

They had active addictions and she didn’t want to pick up and use again, so she bought a $20 tent and tried living outside like she used to. That lasted all of one night because she was so scared.

She returned to Lissimore and the food bank to get back on her feet, and now she’s one of the volunteers.

“This is where my support is. She’s an angel, an absolute angel,” says Doreen, referring to Lissimore. “I’d be lost without her.”

And it’s not just the clients that benefit from the food bank.

The wicked winter weather last year depressed volunteer Debbie Yurkoski. But one day, when the snow was piled high and she was feeling low, the phone rang. On the other end was a woman who had been a food bank regular.

“I’ve got a job and a roof over my head,” the woman happily informed Yurkoski.

“That was so elevating and uplifting,” Yurkoski recalls, “that I wasn’t down any more.”

ggranger@tricitynews.com

PoMo church will be first to provide shelter this fall

St. Andrew’s United Church in Port Moody will be the first to provide shelter for local homeless people when the Cold Wet Weather Mat program begins Nov. 1 — and many volunteers are needed to ensure the program is a success.

Jobs that need to be done include set-up, clean-up, food serving and cooking, with shifts running from 6 to 8 am. and 9 to 11 p.m. Five to seven volunteers are needed per shift.

Volunteer orientation meetings for those interested in helping will be held Saturday, Oct. 17 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and Wednesday, Oct. 21 from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

Donations of food, money, supplies, warm clothes and toiletries are also needed.

St. Andrew’s United is located at 2318 St. Johns St., Port Moody. The Hope for Freedom Society will be running the mat program from Nov. 1 to March 31 with the support of local churches.