Methodism's Breadbasket founder has kept a full plate

BY JOHN A. LOVELACE
Special Correspondent

Occasionally during his 40 years as founder and director of the North Texas Conference Methodism’s Breadbasket, Rev. John W. Tatum Sr., would take a sack of emergency food supplies home from work.

Not that he and his wife, Marian, needed it, but because someone else might. All it would take was one middle-of-the-night phone call.

From Day One, preparedness and personalized response were the keystones of his ministry. In 2009, those keystones helped provide food and clothing to more than 4,500 men, women and children, special help at Thanksgiving, Christmas and back-to-school time for about 450, and, as resources were available, financial assistance for needs such as prescriptions, utilities and rent.

“We never had to deny anybody,” he says, referring to the four decades since opening in 1970. “We always had emergency funds and supplies. We ran short, but we never ran a deficit.”

That is because he built a network of senior pastors, associate pastors, congregations, Sunday school classes and individuals all across the North Texas Conference whom he could count on for support.
  He built that network by going where the givers were. One year he preached in 42 churches in 50 Sundays, “from Wichita Falls to Clarksville.” He seldom came home without donations of cash, food and clothing and assurances of more help if needed.

Often he was the first African-American visiting preacher in a given church. Looking back, he finds it comical that some people walked by without speaking to him on their way in and ended up shaking his hand on the way out.

The son of an African Methodist Episcopal Church lay pastor, Tatum graduated from Mexia High School in Central Texas and from Paul Quinn College, the AME-related school then located in Waco and which subsequently moved to Dallas.

“During my college years,” he says, “I acknowledged my call to ministry.”

Because the AME Church had no seminary nearby, he enrolled at Perkins School of Theology. While there, he served as a student pastor at Bethlehem Center in Dallas, at a church in Denison and, finally, as student director of the Inner-City Parish cooperative ministry composed of Bethlehem Center, El Buen Pastor UMC and St. Luke Community UMC.

For Tatum’s first appointment after graduation from Perkins in 1970, Bishop W. Kenneth Pope appointed him as an associate pastor at St. Luke in charge of the Inner-City Parish. By December that year, Tatum had begun expanding Inner-City Parish’s food voucher program into Methodism’s Breadbasket. He contended that it didn’t make sense to feed people during the holidays and let them go hungry the rest of the year.

In 1971 the Southern Christian Leadership Council’s Dallas chapter staged a demonstration to highlight hunger in Dallas. Tatum commended SCLC’s advocacy but realized it had no follow-up program. In a presentation, the young pastor told the Dallas City Council that he hoped to make Methodism’s Breadbasket a part of the solution.

Toward that end, he has multiple strategies, including:

Initiating interracial dialogues. He mentions particularly sessions with pastors, staff and members from First, Highland Park, University Park and Chapel Hill UMC, all in Dallas.

Becoming a clearinghouse for churches receiving requests for assistance. “Based on our files and our experience, we could check them out pretty fast,” he said.

Establishing a clothing bank at St. Luke.
Establishing a temporary aid loan fund, underwritten by grants from Northaven UMC’s Human Development Fund. Tatum says repayments on loans for utilities, rent, other emergencies and occasional college scholarships run between 80 percent and 90 percent.

Working ecumenically with similar local programs or funds among Presbyterians, Catholics, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Greater Dallas Community of Churches. “We’re not out there on an island.”

Encouraging a family adoption plan, in some instances, helping link donor and recipient families on a long-term basis.
Constantly thanking his “rocks of Gibraltar.” Names that flowed during the interview included Greenland Hills UMC, White Rock UMC, Rev. Larry Ravert, East Dallas Cooperative Parish, St. John UMC, Chapel Hill UMC, Lovers Lane UMC, Rev. Charles Cox, Lake Highlands UMC, Rev. Barry Bailey, Rev. John Ogden, Rev. Charles Cook, Rev. James Hares, Rev. Bill Trice, Leora Trice, Highland Park’s Two By Two Class and First UMC Dallas’ Aldersgate Class.

Tatum points to one special project that “made a difference.” He phoned CEOs at the Dallas County welfare agency and at private aid agencies such as the Salvation Army and, after identifying himself and Methodism’s Breadbasket, asked the executives to explain their agencies’ internal guidelines.

With these guidelines in hand, Breadbasket continued referring clients, as needed, to other agencies. If the client reported being denied help by a given agency, Tatum could call the appropriate CEO and ask for an explanation, since the aid being sought seemed to fit within the agency’s guidelines. 

  This technique caught the attention of The Dallas Morning News, which sent a reporter with Tatum to discern which agencies seemed to live up to their guidelines and which did not. The story got considerable attention.

“And if a given agency even then wouldn’t help a client, Breadbasket did,” he says.

Methodism’s Breadbasket has had an interesting history in the conference structure. At one time, Tatum was on staff as the Conference Director of Community Ministries, including Breadbasket among several special projects. In its earliest years, it was a Conference Advance Special, depending, as other ministries did, for “second-mile” gifts.

Tatum credits the late Rev. Dr. Leighton K. Farrell, chairman of the Conference Committee on Finance and Administration, with pulling Breadbasket into the conference structure on apportionments. It continues as one of a dozen or so conference Advance Specials.

As he reflects on his 40 years directing Methodism’s Breadbasket, he uses one word repeatedly: Personalize.

“People won’t give without a personal touch,” he insists. “Donors want to know who they are helping.” That seems to be his benediction for the agency.

In retirement, John and Marian Tatum have a neat-as-a-pin cozy bungalow in south Dallas filled with photos and other memorabilia for their family of three children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Their well-kept yard includes what had been a vacant lot next door. The entire property is enclosed in a decorative wrought iron fence unlike any other in the neighborhood.

Early mornings, weather permitting, the man who spent his career meeting the needs of others happily meets the needs of his grass and flowers from the business end of a water hose.

Appreciation luncheon
Honoring: Rev. John W. Tatum Sr. and volunteers
When: 11:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 24. Tours and silent auction at 10:30 a.m.
Where: Zan W. Holmes Jr. Community Life Center, 6211 E. Grand Ave.,
Dallas
Cost: $40 per person or $320 per table of eight. Proceeds benefit
Methodism’s Breadbasket .
Contact: Cynthia Martin, 214-887-3926