Spring Break
Care-A-Van suspended by City Health Department
Mary Scott
Issue date: 12/6/05 Section: News
On Monday, Nov. 14, the Loyola Care-A-Van, sponsored by the Center for Values and Service was temporarily suspended by the Baltimore City Health Department for a failure to have a license for food distribution and a lack of hot and cold water.
The new regulations concerning food distribution went into effect on Nov. 1; however the Health Department failed to notify the College so that they could comply. The new law states that anyone distributing food must have a license as well as running cold and hot water so that they and the people they are serving can wash their hands. CVS was not aware any new regulations had been made.
The Care-A-Van program, which has been in existence since 1991, feeds approximately 75 of Baltimore's poor and homeless each week. Every Monday and Tuesday, between seven and twelve student volunteers make sandwiches and drinks here at the College and then distribute them under the Jones Fall Expressway, near City Hall.
On the evening of Monday, Nov. 14, the volunteers were at their usual spot on the corner of Gay Street and Saratoga Street when a city health official told them he had received a complaint about them, and they needed to stop.
"The man told us we would have to stop because we didn't have any running water. He said that this was a warning and that if we came down again, or he was called down again we would be fined," said junior Gretchen Bell, who volunteers with the program regularly.
The city health official showed the students a sheet with the new regulations outlined on it but then took it back.
"It was pretty unprofessional I thought," said senior Tracy Sanna, who has been volunteering with the program for all of her four years at Loyola. "He didn't have any identifying clothes, or anything that we could take with us about the new rules."
According to Sanna, there was still a van full of sandwiches and a line full of people that they were not permitted to finish serving. Instead, they had to place the food on the sidewalk to be retrieved by those who wanted it.
The new regulations concerning food distribution went into effect on Nov. 1; however the Health Department failed to notify the College so that they could comply. The new law states that anyone distributing food must have a license as well as running cold and hot water so that they and the people they are serving can wash their hands. CVS was not aware any new regulations had been made.
The Care-A-Van program, which has been in existence since 1991, feeds approximately 75 of Baltimore's poor and homeless each week. Every Monday and Tuesday, between seven and twelve student volunteers make sandwiches and drinks here at the College and then distribute them under the Jones Fall Expressway, near City Hall.
On the evening of Monday, Nov. 14, the volunteers were at their usual spot on the corner of Gay Street and Saratoga Street when a city health official told them he had received a complaint about them, and they needed to stop.
"The man told us we would have to stop because we didn't have any running water. He said that this was a warning and that if we came down again, or he was called down again we would be fined," said junior Gretchen Bell, who volunteers with the program regularly.
The city health official showed the students a sheet with the new regulations outlined on it but then took it back.
"It was pretty unprofessional I thought," said senior Tracy Sanna, who has been volunteering with the program for all of her four years at Loyola. "He didn't have any identifying clothes, or anything that we could take with us about the new rules."
According to Sanna, there was still a van full of sandwiches and a line full of people that they were not permitted to finish serving. Instead, they had to place the food on the sidewalk to be retrieved by those who wanted it.