Family, friends honored at a Face to Face communion

They came in thanksgiving and in sadness Saturday to remember Alice and George and so many others, all gone now.

Friends and family gathered at St. Vincent de Paul Church in East Germantown to commemorate the dead or disappeared in a ceremony sponsored by Face to Face, a nonprofit social-services group that works out of a large building next to the rectory.

Beverly needed help reading her remarks, and Flip struggled to maneuver his scooter to the front of the church to speak. But they spoke eloquently of people such as Alice Renzulli, who died this summer at age 62, having choked during lunch at a mental-health center down the street.

Phyllis Taylor, who coordinates Sunday dinners at Face to Face, recalled how Alice "always sat on the aisle of the church, so when people came down for Communion she would shake their hands and greet them."

Beverly Treadwell, her head barely visible above the lectern, said Alice had been smart. She wrote poems. She was "caring, lovable, and sharing.

"The feeling in the heart is pain," Treadwell said, her voice swallowed up by the vast, 19th-century church. "But I also feel joy 'cause you are in heaven with the king."

Ernest "Flip" Flippen spoke of a loving aunt who "used to read me the newspaper every Sunday as I ate my lunch." (Flip, who described himself as "70 and heavenly," worked as a cutter of men's suits for 17 years until machines took his job away.)

Others honored murdered sons, cousins killed by crack, mothers and grandparents terribly missed, especially at holiday time. As they spoke, heads bowed in the pews.

Inspiration was also available if one looked up. Throughout the ceremony, a half-dozen men scrambled up and down red scaffolding, like so many Spider-Men. They were painting and spackling 50 feet above the main altar, part of a restoration project due to end by Thanksgiving.

It was hard to avoid comparisons. Like those who live on society's fragile edges, these men had no safety net. One careless step invited catastrophe.

"We see people at the bottom layer of the economy," said Susan Wilson, Face to Face's social worker. "They used to work at the car wash, places like that, and now they're losing their jobs."

Helping organize the event were nine freshmen from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, who chose Face to Face to fulfill a course requirement to work with a nonprofit for one semester.