Sep 23, 2009 7:57 pm US/Pacific
Berkeley Man Provides Street Services For Homeless
Jefferson Award Winner: J.C. Orton
Berkeley (CBS 5) ―
J.C. Orton usually has something to give to the homeless. Often, it's fresh fruit for breakfast, their mail, or even sleeping bags. Working from his trademark blue van, J.C. says the best thing he can offer Berkeley's estimated 800 homeless people is dignity.
"Because you're homeless, because you're underfunded, because you're cold, you don't have what you need, doesn't mean it has to be that way," J.C. explains.
J.C. runs Night on the Streets, one of two Catholic Worker Houses in Berkeley. He founded his non profit twelve years ago, when he noticed some homeless people were falling through the cracks.
"These people were basically the forgotten of the forgotten."
The former lumber clerk began serving soup from his van. Over the years, he's served more than 100,000 meals, mostly at churches, that he still cooks himself.
Mark Donnell was homeless several years ago, but now volunteers with J.C..
"J.C. has given hope to people from the minute he came out on the streets," Mark says.
These days, Night on the Street runs an overnight shelter and soup nights in the winter, and gives out hundreds of sleeping bags a year to those J.C. finds on Berkeley streets. Sometimes volunteer Matt Werner goes with him.
"He's really the one link on the street that homeless here in Berkeley have told me that if it wasn't for J.C., they wouldn't be alive," says Matt.
Whether he's looking for homeless on the streets or holding regular office hours at the local coffee shop, J.C. serves as a one-man reference guide, directing the poor to services he can't provide himself. He even does their taxes.
Today, Mr. G asks J.C. to manage his money so he doesn't spend it all before the month's end.
"Just give me a hundred bucks every Sunday," Mr. G. asks.
J.C. agrees and helps him open a bank account.
J.C. explains, "A co-worker awhile back said to me, 'Doesn't this tire you? Doesn't this drain you for all you're trying to do?' That's one way to look at it, but if anything, I get somebody fed, put blanket over them, take a minute with them, get things straightened out. It energizes me."
So for serving some of Berkeley's poorest residents, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to J.C. Orton.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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