c. 2000 Religion News Service

ST. LOUIS _ What do you get when you mix about half a dozen ex-convicts with a nursing home full of senior citizens?

It sounds like the stuff of the sensational crime story of the week, but the combination actually produces an inspiring result called the Care Team, a community re-entry drug and alcohol ministry for ex-offenders.

Fifty-two-year-old Marsha Brock used to be a thief to support her drug habit. Now her full-time job is stealing a laugh, spreading good cheer and acting as an advocate for the elderly at Northview Village Nursing Center. She’s on the Care Team.

“My life was made out of breaking the law. Basically I was just a crook,” Brock said.

Brock served time in prison. Now she reads to Northview’s elderly residents, runs to the store for them, or just sits with them.

Lutheran Ministries Association, a St. Louis social services agency that runs the program, screens ex-offenders like Brock and recruits those who want to change their lives onto the Care Team. They earn $6.25 an hour and work 20 to 25 hours a week at the nursing home.

The seniors at Northview have love to give and lessons to teach.

“By (the ex-offenders) trying to get back into society by working with people who are less fortunate than they are, it gives them a sense of responsibility and peace,” Northview resident Manford Pearson said.

And the team of five to seven members makes seniors like Anita Hennings, who recently had a stroke, feel good. “They spend time with me. They read the Bible with me,” Hennings said.

The team does the jobs a busy nursing staff does not have time to accomplish. These tasks include things that make getting through a day a little bit easier for seniors who can feel warehoused and forgotten.

“I like Crunch and Munch,” one senior said. She gives the Care Team money to buy the snack and the Care Team runs to the store for her, bringing back the caramel popcorn and change.

Some might question putting ex-offenders in with a population of vulnerable senior citizens. But coordinators of the program say when you take two hurting populations and put them together, they give each other hope.

“Ex-offenders know what it’s like to be rejected and senior citizens often feel like they’ve been rejected and neglected,” said Vera Marcella Walker, Care Team director. “Care Team members and senior citizens, they know how to show love toward one another.”

It was Walker’s idea to begin the program, and Lutheran Ministries took a chance. “I think our fears often get in the way of what our judgment should be. I think we often see the church walking away from people rather than toward them,” said Dick Tetzloff, executive director of Lutheran Ministries.

After eight years the program has a proven track record. Not one of the 40 past and present team members has been in trouble with the law while on the carefully supervised team. Walker is even prouder that 97 percent of former team members have stayed out of trouble after leaving the team to move on to other jobs.

And that’s the point of the Care Team. While working at the nursing home, team members get job skills and build a resume complete with references, when no one else would give them the chance.

“No one would hire me when I told them I’d been incarcerated. Even though they’d look at my credentials and say you’re suitable for this job,” Care Team member Nathaniel Johnson said. Johnson served 15 years for murder and robbery. He was 21 when he committed the crimes.

When he reached his 40s, Johnson was about to return to crime, “just to get by,” he said. But he discovered the Care Team. He said it saved his life.

“It gives you a sense of self-worth and value, that you have a place and you fit because you’re interacting with people,” Johnson said.

He and Brock both credit the seniors.

“No matter what’s going on with the seniors, they say they’re blessed,” Brock said. “And I say, wow, I’m blessed also. It just changed me,” Brock added.

Brock’s in college now. She says she knows she’ll do well because the seniors and staff at Northview trusted her. “They allowed me to do good,” Brock said. And the more good she does, she said, the better she feels.

DEA END WICAI