Daniel Rubin: Delivering meals to those who want a normal life

Just before noon, a quiet angel arrives at Faith Ansah's doorstep.

Bobby Schweitzer, 38 and bundled against the biting cold, carries three white plastic bags packed tight with a week's worth of meals.

Through the torn front screen Ansah sees her visitor coming and motions him in.

"C'mon," she says, welcoming him into her rowhouse on South Hobson Street in Southwest Philadelphia, where her white shih tzu, Polo, stands guard, and the intense sweetness of White Linen perfumes the living room.

This is their Thursday-morning routine, a developmentally disabled man and a woman battling cancer. They don't share much conversation, just a comfortable familiarity.

"You take care," Ansah says, looking over her next week's menu - 21 shrink-wrapped and ready-to-heat meals, such as cranberry-glazed chicken, onion-smothered pork, and barbecue turkey.

Until she got sick in 2007 - colon cancer spreading to her lungs - Ansah, 52, sold Tahitian Noni Juice from a truck at Broad and Poplar. Now she doesn't have the breath to shop or cook for herself, which is particularly hard on a woman who watches her diet.

So she relies on the kitchen of Manna, which brings more than 80,000 meals each month to people in the Philadelphia area who need help getting good food. The organization once gained notice for feeding people dying of AIDS. It's expanded since to help those with life-threatening illnesses.

Schweitzer is about to hustle out the door to continue his rounds when Ansah says to me, "Being helped by Manna has made it possible for me to put my mind somewhere else. They have helped me."

I've been invited to spend the morning traveling with Schweitzer and other volunteers from Community Interactions, a Swarthmore organization that helps people with developmental and intellectual impairments get out in the world.

We are to spend the morning delivering food to seven clients in Southwest Philadelphia. In the afternoon, the volunteers plan to go bowling. Other days they go to the movies, malls, flea markets, or gyms.

Schweitzer said he likes Thursdays because "I just like helping people out. They say 'Thank you' and stuff. They just feel so happy when they get their food."

He sits in the middle row of our van, next to John McGrath, 22, who is deep into an encyclopedia of German warplanes and who has taken three years of high school German, which he keeps practicing on the rest of the crew.

In the back, Steven Glancy, 25, sits next to Markel Harper, talking about favorite radio stations (B101) and movies (The Green Hornet but not Black Swan). Harper, a serial hugger in a Yankees jacket, talks about how he used to be unnerved knocking on people's doors.

"Yes, I love it now," says Harper, 21. "I love giving them food, hearing them say, 'Have a blessed day.' "

At the wheel is Eric Butts, 40, a Community Interactions staffer from West Philadelphia and trained chef. He twists the radio dial, landing on a classical station, then one for oldies. "I usually find a mix of music in the car - rock, rap, classical jazz," he says.

"Jazz puts me to sleep," McGrath offers.

The van stops at a client's apartment on Woodland Avenue. The phone is out of order and no one answers the door. So Butts and McGrath leave the meals with the landlord, at Steve's Exterminating.

On Guyer Avenue, the whole crew is needed to hand over more than 60 servings. Last stop is a man who lives around the corner in a first-floor apartment and uses a wheelchair.

Butts says it took months for his crew and the client to develop trust. Now they unpack his bags.

Meg Neilson directed the day program for Community Interactions a decade ago when it decided to team with Manna. "We've tried other volunteering. Sometimes folks aren't as receptive to our group. It's so good to watch our friends flourish, gain a normal life. All they want is what we have."