[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 61 (Monday, April 3, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5028-S5029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           MOTHER OF THEM ALL

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, a popular trend among the liberal elements 
of the news media today is their assertions that efforts to rid the 
current welfare system of waste and inefficiency are heartless and 
cruel. Aside from being untrue, such statements ignore the 
extraordinary things that are going on in America today. For example, 
the story of Mrs. Carol Porter, cofounder of Kid-Care, Inc., a 
nonprofit organization that feeds needy children in Houston, TX. I was 
reminded of Mrs. Porter and her family's efforts on behalf of Houston's 
hungry children when I read a March 20 People magazine article, headed 
``Mother of Them All.''
  Mr. President, I have met with the remarkable Carol Porter on several 
occasions, the first of which was in October 1993 when she visited 
Washington to receive an award for the very work detailed in the People 
magazine article. Senators and staff members would be impressed, as I 
am, if they could spend just a few brief minutes with this wonderful 
lady and her husband.
  Why? Two reasons come to mind:
  The first is her totally unselfish attitude which puts the needs of 
others before her own. It began when Carol Porter was driving through 
Houston during the Christmas season of 1989. By chance she happened 
upon a group of youngsters eating out of a fast-food dumpster. It was 
then that she and her husband decided to operate a feeding program from 
their three-bedroom home.
  Today, Porter and the volunteers at Kid-Care deliver 500 free meals 
to Houston's poor neighborhoods. Plans are underway to move into a 
facility enabling them to produce 4,000 meals a day, without 1 cent of 
support or subsidy from the U.S. Government.
  My second thought: As the U.S. Senate prepares to debate various 
facets of the House-passed welfare-reform proposal, Senators should 
keep in mind Mrs. Porter's admonition when she was asked about 
Government assistance. Mrs. Porter said, ``I'm against people saying, 
`Let the Government do it.' I say it's time for Americans to feed 
Americans.''
  Mrs. Porter's message to all of us is both needed and refreshingly 
clear: The Government cannot do it all, nor can it afford to. But the 
needs of others can be met if each of us does our part.
  Mr. President, I do hope my colleagues will have time to read the 
article describing an extraordinary lady doing an extraordinary work. I 
ask unanimous consent that the March 20, 1995, People magazine article, 
``Mother of Them All,'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                 [From People magazine, Mar. 20, 1995]

Mother of Them All: Carol Porter Feeds Poor Kids in Houston--Without a 
                        Cent From the Government

       The white van squeals to a stop in the loose gravel of a 
     dilapidated mobile-home park in Houston. The driver blasts 
     the horn five times, and children come running from every 
     direction. One little boy in a blue sweatsuit races back from 
     the van to his mother, excitedly waving a lunch bag over his 
     head. He knows the sack contains a plain turkey sandwich, an 
     apple, a granola bar and some juice. But he couldn't be 
     happier with a bag of Halloween candy.
       ``How excited would you be if you hadn't eaten since we 
     were here yesterday?'' asks Carol Porter, 50, co-founder of 
     Kid-Care, Inc., a nonprofit group that helps feed some of 
     Houston's neediest children. ``It's better than ice cream to 
     these kids. It's hope.''
       Porter and Kid-Care's corps of up to 25 volunteers deliver 
     500 free meals each day to children in one of Houston's 
     poorest neighborhoods. Every morsel is prepared by volunteers 
     in Porter's cramped North Houston home, where extra stoves 
     and refrigerators are shoe-horned into what used to be the 
     family's living room and den. Remarkably, Kid-Care accepts no 
     public funding. ``I'm against people saying, `Let the 
     government do it,''' says Porter. ``I say it's time for 
     Americans to feed Americans.''
       Carol Porter, a registered nurse, and her husband, Hurt, 
     52, a former radio announcer--they have a son, Hurt III, 20, 
     and a daughter, Jamilhah, 10--might serve as a poster couple 
     for the Contract with America. They are black Republicans who 
     are dead set against welfare in its current form. ``I get a 
     lot of flak from black folks,'' says Carol Porter. ``But I'm 
     basing my belief structure on what I know. And I know we need 
     welfare reform with compassion.''
       ``I think we should do more to encourage self-reliance, and 
     that's what the Porters are doing,'' says Texas Senator Kay 
     Bailey Hutchinson.
       Compassion is something the Porters learned from their 
     parents. Carol, in fact, credits her late mother, Lula Doe, 
     with planting the idea for Kid-Care. It was Lula who, in 
     1984, persuaded a local supermarket not to discard its 
     blemished produce but to let her distribute it to the poor.

[[Page S5029]]

       The Kid-Care idea began to take shape at Christmas 1989, 
     when Carol came on a group of children eating out of a 
     McDonalds' dumpster. ``I saw Third World conditions a stone's 
     throw from where I live,'' she says. Two years later, Kid-
     Care was created as a non-profit organization.
       These days, the Porter's three-bedroom bungalow is hemmed 
     in by Kid-Care vehicles. Industrial-size cans of beans, 
     tomatoes, corn and spaghetti sauce line shelves tacked up in 
     the family room. Bags of disposable diapers, bulk rice and 
     dozens of loaves of bread are stacked alongside. in the 
     center of the room is a banquet table, where the sandwiches 
     are prepared in a huge assembly line. In the next room, a 
     magnet stuck to one of four refrigerators reads, ``Carol's 
     Kitchen.'' ``Hah!'' snorts Carol. ``This hasn't been my 
     kitchen in years.''
       Until late last year, Kid-Care provided not only brown-bag 
     lunches but also hot meals. That was when the Houston health 
     department forced the Porters to suspend cooking operations 
     until certain code violations were remedied. That problem 
     should be solved by May, When the Porters hope to move kid-
     Care into its newly acquired 11,500-square-foot building 
     equipped to produce 4,000 hot meals a day. That is, of 
     course, if they can increase their funding. Carol Porter's 
     tireless fund-raising has given Kid-Care high visibility 
     among corporations--Quaker Oats and long-distance company 
     Heartline Communications are sponsors--but most of the 
     current annual budget of $500,000 comes from individual 
     donations. The couple supplements Hurt's $2,000-a-month 
     stipend from Kid-Care with a contract to oversee Houston-area 
     daycare providers for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
     Hurt III earns $1,000 a month managing Kid-Care's 
     transportation.
       Carol, whose dream is to seed Kid-Care groups across the 
     country, draws no salary. ``People ask me what's in it for 
     me,'' she says. ``And I tell them to go the route with me and 
     see my kids' faces. That's what's in it for me.''
     

                          ____________________