Dcn. Eric Wright

Wright serves the homeless as part of his calling to ministry

Eric Wright was delivering food at a homeless camp in Licking County when he met a young woman of about 30 who poured her heart out to him. She had been on the streets for a couple of years and had nowhere to turn. She was crying, tired of being homeless, and ready to get out.

“I have four daughters, the oldest being 20,” Wright said. “When I met this woman, I thought about how that could be my daughter. I asked her what we could do to help. She only had the clothes she was wearing because every time she gets something new it is stolen – underwear, socks, shorts, anything.”

Wright’s visit to the camp was a part of his volunteer work with the Newark St. Francis de Sales Church outreach ministry. Volunteers load a golf cart with sandwiches and other food and take it to camps that are hidden in the woods.

“It’s a privilege to be able to go out there,” he said. “They give us their trust because they’re hiding. We’re not out there to save the world, but to make sure they have something to eat for the day and that they know they have people praying for them and who love them. Every time I go out to the camps, it tugs at my heartstrings.”

Wright and his wife of 28 years, Maggie, have seven children. He said he always has been a server. He was in the U.S. Air Force for seven years before making a career of working in civil service for the Air Force, where he is a laboratory production officer. Driving the golf cart out into the woods has been a good fit with his interest in outdoor activities such as camping and hiking.

He said it is difficult for many of the homeless to make the leap out of homelessness.

“It’s hard to get into the system. A lot of them have alcohol or drug problems or mental health issues,” he said. “There is a waiting list to get into some shelters. Before they go in, they have to test clean, but they’re so frustrated they may hit on a joint or something, and then that keeps them out.”

The St. Francis crew also visits the camps in the winter. Wright said that when he goes home at night and crawls into a warm bed, knowing the homeless are outside in 15-degree weather with a blanket, it concerns him.

“Through my service with the poor I have learned how to serve people better by humbling myself,” said Wright, who has served his parish in several other ways, including as an extraordinary minister of the  Eucharist, with the Knights of Columbus, and on the liturgy committee and the parish council. “It is very humbling to do this work. It’s amazing how blessed we are with what we have, that we should not take a house or a job for granted. We’re all one or two steps away from homelessness. All it takes is one catastrophe or pandemic.”