- April 24, 2024
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A Sheriff’s deputy was talking to a homeless woman seated at a picnic table on a recent sunny day at Tom Renick Park, on State Road A1A in Ormond-by-the-Sea.
“Be sure to drink that juice,” she told the women. “That’s your electrolytes. And finish your snacks.”
Christine McCaleb said she was homeless, though you wouldn’t guess it by her appearance. She looked like many of the retired women in the nearby rows of houses.
“God bless you,” she told the deputy, as she looked at the package of food.
Deputy Donna Bowen told McCaleb that she would be off for a few days, but the food should be enough to hold her.
McCaleb and two other homeless people were spending their day in the shaded picnic area, looking out at the beach as the sun danced on the waves.
Bowen gave packages of food to all of them, purchased with her own money.
“This is just something I do,” she told a reporter who happened by. “I help people who are down on their luck.”
There are some homeless who cause problems, and they are trespassed out of the park, but McCaleb is one that Bowen watches for.
“She knows I don’t cause any problems,” McCaleb said.
Bowen has come to know the homeless in Ormond-by-the-Sea, where she has been patrolling for seven years. They are more than statistics. That day in the park, she knew the history of each homeless individual who was there. She was first alerted to McCaleb when she was called to a nearby grocery store a couple of times when McCaleb was unable to pay.
Bowen’s caring nature has taken her on mission trips with church groups to Nicarugua and other places.
She tells the homeless of the food banks and other services available to them, but many don’t want to go to the agencies.
“They’d rather stay up here,” the deputy said.
