Thousands line up for food, Christmas toys

There is the paperwork, lots of it, when you're in the social-work business.

It sometimes gets mind-numbing.

On Monday, Bill Talbot and a handful of volunteers saw 120 parents — nearly all women, and all of them poor — at The Salvation Army's branch in White Center.

The women were signing up to get Christmas toys for their children and $40 or $50 supermarket shopping cards for a Christmas dinner. They came clutching paperwork to prove they were poor and that they had the kids they said they had.

It actually was a much slower day than the week before, when 200 a day were showing up.

Some 1,200 to 1,300 will get Christmas help at this branch, and some 7,000 overall in King County, an increase of one-third over last year.

With so many clients, Talbot sometimes resorts to crib sheets to help with the numbers. After a while, the numbers jumble up, even simple mental math, like figuring out a kid's age.

Let's see, if the kid was born in 1996, that makes him ... 12.

Talbot has a calm demeanor and not much seems to faze him, good qualifications for his job here as the social-services director.

The Salvation Army is one of 13 organizations that receive aid from The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy. Last year, the agency got $191,000.

High-school Spanish

A good number of the women Talbot helped on Monday knew little or no English; most spoke Spanish.

Talbot, 51, took some Spanish in high school. Over the 10 years he's worked for The Salvation Army, he's picked up a bit more.

"Tres hijos?" he asked a woman, to make sure she has three sons who need gifts. "Si, si," she replied.

He carefully wrote down all the necessary information on a "Toy 'n' Joy" application, giving the mom a voucher that said she needed to show up between 2:45 and 3 p.m. on Dec. 18 at Qwest Field Event Center.

Talbot has seen many of the women in previous years, like the one who showed up in her work uniform from a national motel chain, and a name tag that said, "Guest Services."

She earns $10 an hour and supports a 4-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. Her husband, she says, has worked as a cook and is looking for a job.

Talbot does not get into matters such as why the dad, if he was not working, couldn't show up to wait in line for the toys.

"A lot of guys don't go to the food bank, either. It embarrasses them. The wife goes," he said. "The man is too proud to do it."

Talbot's wife of 30 years, Janeece, is the senior-center director at the White Center branch. They've both been working there for a decade. She, too, has the necessary calm demeanor.

Among her duties is running the food bank at the branch, which opens at 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and stays open until the food runs out.

On this day, because of Thanksgiving overstock, there was a bounty from the bakeries and supermarkets that donate food; 2,000 pounds of sandwiches, produce and frozen items had come from Safeway alone.

"You can go through again," Janeece told those in line, who filled cardboard boxes with everything from bananas to frozen chickens.

Vernell Catlett, 62, was one of those in line. She's a housekeeper at a hospital and just got a raise to $12.57 an hour.

She also helps take care of nine grandchildren, ages 5 to 18, she says. Catlett prepares a lot of their meals. The housekeeping salary gets stretched to bursting.

Catlett has been coming to the food bank for two years.

"They never turn you down," she says.

For the food bank, you need to sign in, no questions asked, Janeece said.

"If people come here for food, they really need that food," she says. "The food here is not perfect. Every apple has a bruise."

Much of the food is right at or past the pull date for supermarkets, although there's nothing wrong with it, Janeece said.

Struggles of their own

The Talbots didn't intend to be in the social-work business.

Bill, especially, had an unlikely background.

After graduating in 1979 from the University of Oregon with a degree in music education, he found a job playing trumpet in an eight-piece band for an Elvis Presley impersonator.

After meeting Janeece — she heard him playing "In The Ghetto" when he was gigging at a Pioneer Square bar — Bill decided he needed a more traditional job.

For nine years he worked for a contractor, with Janeece also joining him in the work crew.

Then, as happens, life threw them a curve. On a job, Bill fell 15 feet off a roof, "and both my heels exploded."

Janeece would later find herself losing her eyesight due to macular dystrophy, a genetic disorder. Her peripheral vision is OK, but she's considered legally blind.

Talbot recuperated and found work doing light carpentry and maintenance at apartment houses.

But the couple hit financial hardships, trying to make mortgage payments and other bills.

In October 1998, their water was turned off for nonpayment, and the Talbots found themselves at The Salvation Army.

They got one-time assistance of $150 to get their water turned back on, and were among those in line at the food bank.

The couple remembered that help and returned to the White Center branch, this time as volunteers.

Their work impressed The Salvation Army, and jobs were offered.

So Bill understands what it's like on the other side of the desk, the side at which you get to fill out the forms seeking help.

Still, he's learned to accept that some of the people he sees, well ... "I have them fill out a little budget sheet. A lot of times they don't understand they're spending more than they make. They have to see it written down, and then they go, 'Ohhh.' "

Talbot told of a recent client, a 24-year-old woman living in subsidized housing, who was collecting $623-a-month Social Security after her husband passed away. The details are a little fuzzy.

For a year, Social Security was overpaying her, to a total of $2,300, until the agency figured it out. Then it began to cut back her monthly payments until the $2,300 was made up.

Talbot looked at her bills and saw she was spending $100 a month for cable television.

"I try to lead them gently. I told her, 'I can only help you one time this year,' " Talbot says about giving the woman a voucher to pay directly an outstanding bill. Clients never get cash.

He says he knew her reply — "Yeah, I'm gonna have to get that cable cut off" — was said "because she thought that's what I wanted to hear."

Talbot doesn't really expect that'll happen.

"If you can win one case of out 50, you feel pretty good about it," he says. "It's a mindset that these people get raised in. They think that's the way life is."

On Tuesday, Talbot was back to handling the paperwork for more people waiting in line for Christmas gifts, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday, the last day for gift sign-ups.

He knows others might judge severely those seeking help.

"It's not my place to judge anyone," he says. "I'm not better than anyone else on this Earth."

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com