Program director to retire after serving thousands of meals to those in need
It’s a Tuesday night in the basement of Blessed Sacrament Church on Oxford Street in Rochester. Supper is about to begin.
There are 50 or so guests, all in need of a free meal, good company, and spiritual support. Conversations pause. Mary Jo Lightholder says grace.
“This is a blessed space,” she says. “So many blessings happen here.” So they do.
Since 1992, what is now Blessed Sacrament Supper Program has served the vulnerable, carrying out a mission of offering physical and spiritual support. Lightholder, 66, became the director in 1999, thinking she would be in the position for a couple years.
Now, after 24 years on the job, she finds herself saying goodbye, as she’ll retire on April 26. Anne Bowes, who has worked part-time in the program, will take her place.
Lightholder says that she and her husband, Nils, who retired a year ago, would like to spend more time together. And she is losing some of her eyesight due to an inherited retinal disease.
“I want to make the most of retirement while I can,” Lightholder says. “There is nothing to be sad about. I have been blessed beyond words while building lasting relationships with our guests and volunteers. Our city has some problems, but there is so much good and tireless work being done to help one another just by being kind.”
There’s no question that Lightholder will be missed.
“She’s a saint,” says Tony Morrell, a supper guest. “She offers a sense of dignity. When you come here, she treats you like a human being.”
The program serves meals five nights a week, three nights a week in July and August. The guests vary in age and in circumstances. Some are homeless; others have homes but are struggling just to get by.
“You have a lot of fragility,” says Lightholder, who knows the condition full well, as she lost her brother Jimmy Walker to addiction and mental health issues.
The guests at the suppers may live in a world that is unsettled and precarious, but the dinners are orderly and safe. “I know God is in this place,” Charles Hanks, one of the guests at an earlier meal, says.
Some of the food for the meals is donated by Wegmans, or it comes from Foodlink or other providers. Donations from Blessed Sacrament and other sources help with the costs.
During the pandemic, the program switched to takeout and kept serving that way for more than two years before going back to the communal suppers.
The operation depends on volunteers, 250 or so, who come in groups on different nights each month. Blessed Sacrament parishioners have always volunteered. Temple B’rith Kodesh in Brighton and Mount Olivet Church in Rochester combine once a month. Students from Minerva Deland School in Fairport have been coming for years.
Terry Smith, a regular volunteer with a group from Holy Cross Church on Lake Avenue in Rochester, is one of Lightholder’s biggest fans. “Oh my God, she is beyond wonderful,” Smith says. “She is so kind and loving. What she does is just miraculous.”
Lightholder shrugs off the praise, shifting the spotlight to Smith, who has just turned 95. (A very active 95. She skis, kayaks, takes walks, has even skydived.)
Nancy McMullen, a Blessed Sacrament parishioner, volunteers her time as assistant director of the program. “I would not have lasted this long without her,” Lightholder says.
Kathleen Nichols volunteered as a baker and cook for several years before her death in 2012. She left behind a wall of photographs she had taken of the supper guests.
The pictures give a sense of the wide range of people served. Their ages vary. Their races vary. They could be anyone.
“These are the faces of hunger,” Lightholder says. “You have no idea what people carry. You connect with their eyes. I love the people who come here.”
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.