Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990 TAG: 9004110435
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B/1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Joy Sylvester-Johnson, the mission's development director, said the use of a small yellow coupon can get the answer.
The coupon has the times for free lunch or supper at the mission at Fourth Street and Tazewell Avenue Southeast and a phone number.
You give the panhandler the meal coupon instead of money.
If a panhandler says, " `Aw, I been to that place. They won't help me,' " Sylvester-Johnson said, it means "this guy wanted something to drink."
Sylvester-Johnson said she has 8,000 of the tickets and will be contacting civic clubs and businesses to give them away and get them in circulation.
Missy Boder, dressed as the "Rescue Rabbit," started out distributing the tickets on the City Market.
Unlike a similar campaign in California, the tickets are free. Sylvester-Johnson said John Reed at Curry Copy Center didn't charge for printing the coupons.
Although Sylvester-Johnson didn't mention it herself, she was asked about people who feel guilty when they don't give a panhandler a cash handout.
There is reason, she said, to feel guilty when you do give the panhandler money.
People who do that, she said, aren't doing the panhandler a favor.
"He's going to buy a pint. He's going to buy a fix," she said.
In the winter, the panhandler may beg enough to buy himself a little peace under a bridge and go to sleep and freeze to death.
"You haven't helped him," Sylvester-Johnson said.
"I don't give money to panhandlers ever," she said.
Guilt generally is a bad thing, she said, but, "guilt should be there if you take the easy route" and give a panhandler money.
"I don't want people to give out of guilt," she said.
She said the number of people being helped at the mission - a bed, clothes, a shower, a meal - is growing.
"The most legitimate cases are not going to be asking for handouts," she said.
by CNB