Sherry Johnson speaks with customers at the center’s Secret Garden Café.
Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Donald Godfrey loads meals he delivers for homebound seniors as Michelle Davis White,
senior Veggie Mobile program director, helps at the Community Caring Center
of Greater Boynton Beach. Godfrey also is a former client.
Related story: Honey-do men do much more than deliver food
Sherry Johnson keeps the Community Caring Center
in Boynton Beach chugging along as it plans to expand.
By Lona O’Connor
A few months ago, Sherry Johnson was tired. She was feeling her age. She had been running the Community Caring Center for nearly 20 years and had watched her son die after a four-year battle with brain cancer. Her daughter was seriously ill.
She wrote in a Facebook post: “I don’t often rant, preach, or extend my ideas, personal sorrows, misfortunes, or celebrations,” she wrote. “I am here at a pivotal moment in my life. Facing 70. … The devil has been on my heels, losing a son last year and coming very close to losing a daughter this summer. …”
Community Caring Center has provided food and social services to needy people in Boynton Beach since a group of clergy started it in 1987. Johnson has led the group since 1998, as chief visionary and, when necessary, janitor.
“Sherry continued to function through everything,” said Joyce Portnoy, president of CCC’s board of directors for the last five years.
By the end of her Facebook post, Johnson had characteristically turned upbeat, thanking her team for its support.
“She talked herself right out of it,” said Allan Hendricks, a CCC board member. “Lord have mercy, I can’t imagine losing a child, facing those stresses and challenges. But she gets to lean on us. As a team we hold each other up.”
Her supporters are united in their devotion to Johnson.
“There are a lot of things that need to be fixed in the world and it can be a little overwhelming,” said Hendricks. “Then you meet someone like Sherry who is working for change and you say, here’s something I can get.”
Johnson has kept CCC quietly chugging along, with optimism and not much money.
“If a toilet is broken, her sleeves are rolled up,” said Doreen Robinson, a board member. “Or she’s flipping chicken in the kitchen. There is nothing she would not do. Her heart is as big as the world.”
The Community Caring Center started in October 1987. By 1998 it was struggling and Johnson’s church took it over. Johnson had been working for the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency and her pastor asked her to run CCC.
From the start, as she interviewed people seeking financial aid and shelter, Johnson noticed something.
“Someone would lose a job after six months and I would say, what’s going on, and they would say, I was out sick a lot, I’ve got diabetes.”
All told, 32 percent of people applying for financial assistance had nutritionally related diseases.
“I said, oh, my gosh, as a food pantry we hand out cans of green beans full of sodium, and baked goods!”
Johnson set herself to distributing healthier food, including fresh produce, and teaching nutrition to adults and children.
CCC is poised for a new era. An energetic board of directors is determined to graduate from grants to a guaranteed annual income and to raise awareness about CCC, whose budget is just below a million dollars.
CCC consists of the food pantry, social services and the Secret Garden Café on Boynton Beach Boulevard, which serves meals several days a week and hosts trendy pop-up food events.
The café is the home of one of Johnson’s longtime dreams, a small-business incubator. A group of bakers and cooks sells its wares there.
“When I first came on the board, the incubator was new, and it was struggling,” said Robinson. “But Sherry was a soldier with her feet planted. She said, I need two years. Sherry shed sweat and tears to build that program.”
The payoff is a new group of enterprising and ambitious chefs devoted to the cause, like chefs Nina Kauder and Lynn Dorsey, who have lured vegetarians, vegans and foodies to the Secret Garden, which also serves organic meat dishes.
“Now people see the value of it, especially people who have eaten there,” says Portnoy. “They see how good the food is.”
Veggie Mobiles
If all goes as planned, CCC and the Secret Garden will no longer be one of those best-kept secrets and CCC’s future will be financially secure.
“We keep saying, can’t you feel the moment? Certainly we can feel the moment,” says Portnoy. “We got up the courage to ask for a lot of money. One of our board members said, go big, ask for a lot.”
Going big resulted in a grant from the Jim Moran Foundation, which donated two shiny new Veggie Mobiles to deliver food to seniors.
The future also means taking the burden of workaday details off a 70-year-old founder who has been doing it all for decades: a new grant writer (paid for by a grant) and a bookkeeper and an assistant for Johnson.
The next step is to secure a stable flow of money for the organization, which has for years been patching together grants and one-time gifts.
“It’s been catch-as-catch-can,” said Portnoy. “You need to know you’re getting a certain amount of money and we’re not at that point yet. If we could have a trust that would give us $50,000 a year, we could do so much more.”
Sometimes even a visionary needs to hear a little tough talk.
“I told her, we need you leading the organization, not cleaning the toilets,” said Robinson. “She and I could be out in the community, creating new relationships.”
Now that the “R” word has been mentioned, it’s also time to plan for the future of CCC. “I want her to feel she’s had some success before she gets to retire, so she can go with a clear head, feeling she’s done everything she possibly can to keep this organization afloat, to keep CCC as a viable part of the city,” said Portnoy.
Cranksgiving
Robinson, a former hotel management executive, is in charge of fundraising events, including Cranksgiving, a scavenger hunt conducted on bicycles, on Nov. 13. Last year’s Cranksgiving had 54 riders and paid for $1,300 in groceries. Robinson’s goal is to double that this year.
In the spring there will be a March 3 hunger walk and a Kentucky Derby fundraising event in May.
“One of my missions is to let people know,” said Robinson. “Not many people know about CCC, after 30 years in operation. We are focusing on the good work.”
Years ago, the first fundraiser brought in about $8,000. Last year, the James Bond-themed “Diamonds are Forever” event raised $87,000.
“People say, where did this organization come from? It does what?” said Hendricks. “Sherry is not the kind of person to demand anything or push too hard. We’ve pushed our visibility.”
Next generation of leaders
Johnson sees that from her current crop of business protégés could come the next generation of leaders of CCC.
“That’s my job, to provide a platform for them. It’s a match made in heaven,” said Johnson. “Nina is learning social marketing, she’s picked up new skills. And she has an entourage of people who follow her.”
Dorsey is cooking healthy meals for seniors as well as growing her own business as a private chef.
“Lynn is just one step away,” said Johnson. “We’ve given her low overhead, low rent and equipment and now she may be hiring her first employee, a delivery guy. This is so exciting right now.”
Perhaps Johnson’s biggest dream is for the Secret Garden to be part of an urban living-working-eating neighborhood.
“Here’s my vision,” she says, and it seems so very possible that the listener is already on board with any idea that comes out of her mouth.
“If you could take a Guanabanas (waterside restaurant in Jupiter) kind of atmosphere, with trees and paths, and combine it with a Sundy House courtyard setting. …”
That dream has so many working parts that even Johnson is not pushing it too hard just yet.
But don’t put anything past her.
If You Go
The Nov. 13 Cranksgiving event begins and ends at the Fish Depot Bar and Grill, 511 NE Fourth St., Boynton Beach. Registration is at 8 a.m., the ride starts at 9 a.m. Participants can ride, volunteer or drop off food. The event includes a specially priced brunch. For more information, contact Dean Fesette at Fesette@aol.com or 542-1930 or to register online, visit www.cccgbb.org/cranksgiving.
Comments