Eating beneath the sidewalks of Philadelphia

THE FIRST TIME, she walked around for 45 minutes to work up the nerve to do it. As someone who shuns the spotlight, approaching a homeless person with an offer of food, a handout, was outside her comfort zone. "I thought people would be resentful," Sharon Suleta says.

The first time was nine weeks ago this very night, in the Suburban Station underground concourse. Dragging a food-filled luggage cart behind her, with a socks-stuffed canvas bag over her arm, she approached those who appeared to be homeless and asked, "Would you like a dinner bag?"

She was surprised when I reached out to her after a friend tipped me to her quiet act of charity. "It's such a little thing," Sharon protests.

"If we all did a little, it would have a big impact," I'm told by Christine Simiriglia, a friend of Sharon's who is CEO of the nonprofit Pathways to Housing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Every Wednesday evening, Sharon offers dinner to the homeless beneath the sidewalks of Philadelphia.

Last week, I went with her.

She drags the luggage cart from her office at 1515 Arch St., where for the last five years she has been an outside attorney contracted to represent the Philadelphia Zoning Board. She earned her degree at Temple Law; zoning has been her specialty for 20 years.

Getting to where she is was not easy. A native of Camden, she spent some years living in the Peter J. McGuire Gardens housing project after her mother and father divorced and he dropped out of her life.

He returned years later, homeless and on his last legs.

Sharon thinks that might have opened her heart to homeless people, whom she would see in the concourse after work as she headed home to her husband and grown daughter in Wallingford.

"The concourse can be such a sad place when it's cold late at night, and I decided I wanted to do something other than just hand out money," she says. It's clear she wanted more personal involvement.

For advice, she called Simiriglia at Pathways to Housing, which serves the chronically homeless with mental and addiction issues.

Simiriglia told her food would be appreciated, and suggested what kind, but advised against cash as that could be used to feed an addiction. "My one big suggestion was socks. They need clean socks," Simiriglia says. "It's a weird little thing, but they mean a lot to people."

Before going to work on Wednesdays, Sharon fills two dozen paper bags with sandwiches she makes herself, plus condiments, chips, and "something sweet, like Krimpets," she says. The sandwiches are mostly ham or turkey and cheese, plus tuna fish, which is better for the homeless who are missing teeth.

They go into the rolling luggage that she drives into work because it's too much to lug on the train. She estimates she spends $125 to $150 a week.

She's not really clear on precisely "why" she does this. A soft heart, a generous spirit, a father who was homeless. Hard to say. She also lives with a cat and three elderly dogs she adopted because no one else would. "All it takes is patience and a good rug cleaner," she says, sounding a little like Erma Bombeck.

I'm thinking of calling her the Lady in the Concourse. She calls herself Meals on Heels.

Last Wednesday evening, I found her still in work clothes - a blue dress and heels - with her food-filled luggage, youthful and cheerful at 60.

In the concourse, Sharon first looks for her regulars.

She approaches two elderly ladies sitting on a bench who appear to be homeless. "Would you like a dinner bag?"

They smile; each takes a bag. "Thank you. God bless you."

I am about to ask her if she ever offers a bag to someone who is not homeless, when it happens right before my eyes.

She approaches a lanky, elderly man in a baseball cap.

"I'm just waiting for a train," he says, without irritation but with some curiosity.

A middle-aged man wearing a Northeastern University sweatshirt approaches her and accepts a bag - and the socks - with gratitude. I ask if he knows the Lady in the Concourse.

"No, but I've heard about her. She's got a reputation."

"That's the first time I've heard that in a good way," says Sharon, who enjoys writing comedy.

Her reputation is mentioned in a later conversation with Ballard Spahr partner Michael Sklaroff. Sharon worked there for five years earlier in her career.

"She has the highest reputation for being scrupulously ethical; she has a terrific legal mind and work ethic," Sklaroff says, then adds: "She has a big heart and is very modest."

"Usually I'd be out of bags by now," Sharon says after 15 minutes, but many of the homeless are above ground in the balmy weather. We head over to the underground office of Hub of Hope, an outreach operation of Sister Mary Scullion's Project HOME, I'm told by Kanika Stewart, the homeless outreach case manager.

Hub provides housing and psychological and medical services in addition to hot beverages, which fit with Sharon's sandwiches.

With warmer weather coming, Sharon probably will find a new route for distribution. Simiriglia says that with LOVE Park under renovations and Dilworth discouraging homeless people, "they probably will get pushed toward Market East."

Wherever they are, Meals on Heels will find them.

stubyko@phillynews.com

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