Fraud imperils future of feeding program

Greed has put in doubt the future of the Lourdes Lunch Program, a little slice of kindness on the corner of Auburn Avenue and Boulevard in Atlanta.

Hampton Ward, 67, has quietly written checks totaling up to $40,000 a year to feed the homeless for the last 17 years at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. He planned to endow the twice-weekly lunch with $1 million to $2 million so it might operate in perpetuity. But that money now is gone.

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Johnny Crawford/jcrawford@ajc.com

Volunteer Eugene Johnson gets a pat on the back from Hampton Ward. Ward pays to feed about 300 homeless people twice a week at Our Lady of Lourdes church downtown. It’s something he longs to continue.

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Johnny Crawford

Thayes Sturgis talks to more than 200 people waiting for food in the parking lot of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Sturgis, 67, whom Ward calls his ‘drill sergeant,’ has been volunteering for a decade.

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Ward is a victim of Edward Hugh Okun, a Miami businessman convicted in a Virginia federal court in March for fraud. Okun bought the company that was holding part of Ward’s and others’ savings and drained the accounts. He faces up to 400 years in prison when sentenced in August, according to news reports.

“Greed is the biggest enemy of capitalism,” Ward said. “What we need is enlightened capitalism.”

Ward practiced what he preaches. He grew his Atlanta-based United Cleaning Services into a solid business. He wanted to give back to the community that made him successful and chose the church’s feeding program that started about 20 years ago with a lone member handing out sandwiches.

Ward’s business success continued and he sold his company in 1995 and invested the profits in real estate in Colorado. In 2006, when he and his partners sold a shopping center, Ward put $3.4 million into a privately operated 1031 Exchange, which holds profits and defers taxes while the seller finds another property to buy. Okun bought the 1031 Exchange in 2007 and Ward’s money disappeared.

The aproned Ward, helping the 30 or so volunteers making Tuesday’s meal, said the fraud did not leave him penniless. He will be OK.

“And [the lunch program] will stay open as long as I am alive,” he promised.

And afterward?

Ward shrugged. He will leave what he can in his will, he said. But it won’t be the amount he had envisioned.

The lunch program, which serves more than 300 meals, twice a week, is far more than just Tuesday’s hot pastrami, bread, tea and vegetables. It is a lifeline that runs on both sides of the serving counter.

Thayes Sturgis, 67, whom Ward calls his “drill sergeant,” has been volunteering for a decade. The year she first showed up, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She and her doctors beat it.

“I said God has given me another chance,” Sturgis said. “I had no choice but to give back, because I am so grateful for every day.”

One of her favorite “customers,” Rosie Julian, has been on the streets for about two years and comes to eat.

“To me, it’s a blessing,” said Julian, who has watched some of her fellow homeless people eat out of trash cans.

“I’m glad that I haven’t lost my pride and dignity and done that,” she said.

And time spent at Lourdes is more than filling the space in her stomach. She socializes and Sturgis brings her clothes and some kindness.

What’s more, the food is the best around, Julian said.

“Ain’t no baloney sandwiches. They cook that good food. That soul food,” she said.

Ward said, “That’s what hurt me the most about this swindle. I had counted on this to go on forever.”