COSTA MESA : Soup’s Still On, Thanks to Church

A young boy standing in line at the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen tugs gently at his mother’s hand, pulling her closer to the door and his waiting lunch inside.

“You are going to love it today,� coos Merle Hatleberg to the youngster, who stares back blankly at the stranger. “We have all kinds of fruit and hot dogs.�

For five years, Hatleberg has stood at the kitchen’s door, greeting thousands of homeless, ill or otherwise down-on-their-luck people who have depended on her for a daily meal.

During it all, the 69-year-old great-grandmother has done battle with cancer and angry neighbors, overcoming the odds to run one of the county’s most successful soup kitchens. A new triumph will come today when she picks up her ladle once again and moves her operation to First United Methodist Church.

“My feeling is when something needs to be done, you do it,� said Hatleberg about her quest to keep the kitchen door open. “It really doesn’t take much to make a pot of soup.�

Today’s grand opening will complete a move much different from the kitchen’s journey more than two years ago, after enraged neighbors mustered enough support to force her and her soup pots out of their neighborhood. The kitchen found refuge in another church, but lost a home when it lost an advocate.

Last November, word was circulated that the Rev. Bob Ewing was leaving South Coast Christian Church. In 1989, Ewing rescued the weary kitchen after it was forced out of the Rea Community Center on Hamilton Street in the wake of neighbors’ complaints about the kitchen’s clientele. Since then, hundreds have lined up at the church on the corner of Placentia Avenue and Victoria Street every weekday from 2 to 4 p.m. for a bowl of soup, a sandwich and a little companionship.

But with Ewing’s departure came a monthly rent bill and a notice that the congregation needed the space. “The writing was on the wall,� said Hugo Hunziker, a member of the Someone Cares board of directors. “It wasn’t a matter of would we have to move, but when.�

Last month, a letter to city officials asking if Someone Cares could return to the Rea center touched off a swell of protest. The suggestion brought about 90 opponents to a recent City Council meeting. The item was not considered at the time.

Fearing further backlash, Hatleberg went to work behind the scenes and came up with a contract to use the First United Methodist Church on 19th Street, across from Triangle Square.

As head of the grass-roots charity, which she started with her own money, Hatleberg has become a combination philanthropist, social worker and politician, using all her skills to keep the kitchen alive.

Born in West Virginia to a Baptist minister father and a kind-hearted mother, Hatleberg said she learned early about giving. After her father died, her mother converted their house into a board-and-care facility to support her eight children.

A black ‘X’ marked their home, signaling to the poor that they could come to the back door for a free meal. Several years later, when people started coming to the back door of the Rea center seeking leftovers from the city’s senior lunch program, she also couldn’t turn them away. Instead she bought a pot and some beans.