Cathedral fridge gets a workout in aiding hungry

The buzzer rings and Bud Patnode quickly opens the refrigerator in his office to fetch another sack lunch. There's another hungry stranger on the doorstep, waiting for the "man behind the door."

On a typical three-hour shift at the Cathedral of the Madeleine's Good Samaritan program, Bud will open the door or an adjoining window more than 100 times to hand out sack lunches to Salt Lake City's homeless and poor.

It doesn't matter whether the person on the doorstep is neatly dressed or wearing rags, drunk or sober, obnoxious or soft-spoken. Everybody is given a sack lunch, no questions asked.

This is how it goes on the cathedral rectory's front doorstep, 11 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. More than 15,000 sack lunches are handed out each month, 180,000 each year. Bud also hands out toothpaste and soap with the bologna-and-cheese lunches, and during winter months, he'll offer hats, gloves and coats to those who have none.

Sure, there are a few people who take advantage of the Good Samaritan program, he says, but "by giving to everybody, we make sure we miss nobody. For 20 years now, this is how it's been done."

Hoping to share the beauty of the doorstep program, Bud, 73, recently met me for a Free Lunch chat at the rectory, where he has volunteered as a door host for seven years.

One of about 60 people who take turns answering the door, Bud initially signed on to slap together sandwiches in the cathedral kitchen. But those in charge quickly recognized his listening and communication skills and knew he'd be perfect for dealing with the downtrodden at the door.

A retired engineer who also spent 26 years in the Army as a pilot and a paratrooper, including one year as a company commander in Vietnam, Bud Patnode might seem a little gruff on the exterior. But inside, he's as gentle as St. Benedict.

Perhaps he relates to the people who come to the front doorstep because of his experiences growing up in the small town of Churubusco, N.Y., pop. 131.

Bud's family lived across the street from the railroad tracks, "and the hobos had our house marked," he recalls. "Even when we were destitute, we never turned anybody away. We shared what we had. My grandfather instilled in me that we had to do this."

Sixty years later, when Bud found he had a little extra time on his hands, he remembered those hobos who used to knock on the door. The Good Samaritan program would be the perfect fit.