THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, August 17, 1994             TAG: 9408170400
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B03  EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   41 lines

OPERATION BLESSING TO GIVE AWAY FOOD TO POOR IN HAMPTON ROADS

About 650 employees of the Christian Broadcasting Network and its affiliates will be joined by sports and show-business celebrities Thursday to distribute 280,000 pounds of food to the poor in seven Hampton Roads cities.

Food from 18 tractor-trailers will be distributed by Operation Blessing's Hunger Strike Force Convoy '94. Hampton Roads is the sixth of 17 stops the convoy will make across the country. Operation Blessing is affiliated with CBN.

Miss America 1990 Debbye Turner, former National Football League player D.J. Dozier of Virginia Beach; actor Lawrence Tero, who played the part of ``Mr. T.'' on television; and Broadway performer Carol Lawrence will be on hand for the food distribution as well as Operation Blessing founder Pat Robertson.

Churches and other organizations have handed out vouchers to people who qualify to get the food. Families will get enough groceries to feed six people once. Churches and other institutions that run soup kitchens will be given bags of produce.

Food distributions will begin at 10:30 a.m. at Mount Carmel Baptist Church at 1100 Church St. in Norfolk and at the intersection of Parkside Drive and Oxford Road in Chesapeake.

At 1:30 p.m. food will be given out at the following sites: Friendship Square Rental Office, 1235 Friendship Square, Virginia Beach; Fairwood Agape Baptist Church, 3709 Elliott Ave., Portsmouth; New Hope Baptist Church, 4260 Pughsville Road, Suffolk; Pine Chapel Community Center, 32 Crenshaw Court, Hampton, and at the intersection of 16th Street and Jefferson Avenue, Newport News.

KEYWORDS: OPERATION BLESSING

by CNB