When two people who sincerely care about helping others have a conversation, you never know just what good might happen. But usually, something does.
This Wednesday evening (June 12), the Harbourside Lobstermania Restaurant on Water Street in East Greenwich is hosting a buffet dinner to benefit Amos House. And it was just that kind of conversation that served as the impetus for what is now an annual event.
The restaurant, which overlooks picturesque Greenwich Bay, has held the benefit for the last couple of years. Last year, organizers turned over a check for $6,500. This year the goal is $7,500.
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It all got started in a Rhode Island sort of way. A casual conversation fuels real action.
In this case, Ann Oster, who works in training and development at Amica Insurance, was talking to a friend, Brian Cavanagh, of the Cavanagh Company in Smithfield. The conversation turned toward helping others.
Oster had helped out at Amos House in the past. It had been a moving experience. So many young mothers — so many children. It was not at all what she had expected to see.
“God has given me so much in life…I can’t always comprehend the inequities for human beings,” she said.
Cavanagh also had an Amos House connection. He helps Amos House raise money, regularly bringing friends and business contacts through the facility.
So it should come as no surprise that something special came out of that conversation between Oster and Cavanagh.
Before long, he arranged for Oster to join him on one such tour. She brought along another friend, Vickie Brisco. Brisco runs Harbourside Lobstermania with her father.
The experience was heart wrenching. After the tour, Cavanagh took the two women to a downtown restaurant. Nothing tasted quite right.
“We have to do something,” Oster remembers saying to Brisco.
From there it took off. Brisco has donated the food each year. Oster brings in the people. Her sister, Therese Picard, helps out as well. There is a raffle each year. More than 50 businesses have contributed to the cause – year after year.
“It is amazing what people will do when you ask,” said Oster.
Amos House is more than Rhode Island’s largest soup kitchen, though it does serve 600 meals a day, six days a week. It also provides transitional housing and job training. There are medical and eye care clinics for people with no other access to health care. There is substance abuse counseling, and a wide range of social services.
Amos House counts heavily on grassroots support, on evenings like this Wednesday in East Greenwich. Events like it are its lifeblood.
Miriam Kimball is director of development at Amos House. If Amos House were a typical business, you would describe it as booming. For example, there has been a 16.5 percent increase in demand for the meal program this year. And of those 600 visitors to Amos House each day, 15 percent are children.
That’s a big part of what Kimball wants you to know about Amos House. That the economy has taken a real toll on those at the lower end of the financial spectrum. And that doesn’t mean the homeless. It includes working people. People who are literally living check to check
“Most of the folks who come to Amos House are employed,” said Kimball. “But they’re in low-end, low-paying jobs. We are seeing an awful lot of new faces in our dining hall.”
She also wants you to know how much everyone at Amos House appreciates the generosity of people like Oster and Brisco and Cavanagh. She calls Cavanagh “a wonderful person.”
“He has a real desire to help,” she said. “He believes he had many blessings and good fortune…”
If you feel the same way, you may want to make your way down to the East Greenwich waterfront on Wednesday evening.
Tickets for the Harbourside Lobstermania buffet on Wednesday are $20 each. For additional information you can call Oster at (800) 992-6422 ext. 3281. Kimball can be reached at 831-9866. If you have eaten at Lobstermania you know the food will be terrific.
The cause is even better.
