by Brother Michel Bettigole, O.S.F.
Twenty-six years ago, Sister Mary Maloney, a native of Bay Ridge and a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, arrived home in Brooklyn after having served for 14 years as a missionary nurse in Senegal, Africa, and Brazil, South America. She hardly had time for a rest when she was asked to accept the leadership of CHIPS (Christian Help in Park Slope), a soup kitchen that had been founded by the parishioners of St. Francis Xavier parish in Park Slope to provide aid to the poor and homeless.
When Sister Mary took over its leadership, CHIPS was serving about 50 soup meals a day in the rented ground floor of a five-story apartment building on Sackett St. and Fourth Ave. There was $200 in the bank.
When she retired this past April at the age of 80, CHIPS was serving tens of thousands of nutritious hot lunches each month. She had run a fund drive that enabled her to purchase the building. She then renovated the soup kitchen and transformed the upper stories into Frances Residence, apartments for the use of homeless pregnant women and their newborn babies. These young women were not merely housed; they also received training in parenting and jobs skills that would enable them to be permanently housed when they left CHIPS, educated and prepared to become responsible working parents.
What she brought to CHIPS, however, was not only superb organizing and leadership skills. She also infused the soup kitchen and shelter with a spirit of love and caring that made it seem more like a home than an institution.
I will never forget the sight of a young drug addict leaving her seat in the soup kitchen when Mary arrived, embracing her with joy-filled eyes like a lost infant finding its mother. Or the time a client, who sang in her church’s gospel choir, began to sing the verses of “O Happy Day,” (O happy day when Jesus walked, O when He walked along this way), and soon had all the guests, staff, volunteers, all singing and dancing God’s praise in unison. It was like a Pentecost of grace. Or seeing Sister Mary seated with a group of elderly women who were trying to live on their meager Social Security checks and conversing with them like a friend having guests at her kitchen table.
Today, CHIPS serves 93,000 meals a year to senior citizens, working families and the homeless each year. All this because one woman believed in the vision of St. Francis and her foundress, St. Frances Schervier, to care for God’s forgotten poor. Whenever I saw Sister Mary walking among the clients at CHIPS, I used to pray to St. Francis: “Behold, Abba Francis, this is indeed one of your true daughters.”
As Mary leaves us, we at CHIPS hope that we can continue her mission. Our board of directors, made up entirely of volunteers, and our 100-plus volunteers, who prepare meals and serve our guests each day, offer their services free of charge. The generous giving of hundreds of people finances our $400,000 per annum budget. Whenever we talked to Mary about finances, she would say to us in the manner of St. Francis, “Do not worry! God always provides!” We pray that the generous giving that she inspired continues.