Sister Jean Webster, 76; fed A.C. homeless

Sister Jean Webster considered the people she was feeding her "guests," not simply the homeless or hungry who roam the streets of Atlantic City.

So she always served a big helping of "self-worth and dignity" with the fried chicken and scalloped potatoes she dished out five days a week at Sister Jean's Kitchen.

Her homeless outreach started more than 25 years ago when she saw a man rummaging through a garbage can and invited him home for dinner. Her mission - she refused to call the place a "soup kitchen" - would grow to feed 400 people a day.

Mrs. Webster, 76, a nationally known homeless advocate known locally as "Sister Jean," "St. Jean," and the "Mother Teresa of Jersey," died Monday, Jan. 10, at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City, where she had been hospitalized since Dec. 22 for a cardiopulmonary condition.

Mrs. Webster was born in New York City and moved to Atlantic City at age 5 when her father found work there as a handyman. She attended culinary school after graduating from local schools, but by age 15 was working as a cook in area nursing homes to help support her family, which included five sisters and three brothers.

She eventually found employment as a sous chef at the former Playboy Casino, at Caesars Atlantic City, and at Trump Taj Mahal. Mrs. Webster's heart condition forced her to retire 20 years ago from Taj Mahal.

Instead of taking it easy, she insisted that God had told her to feed the needy. Her relatives feared that she was using much of her meager pension to pay for the food to feed the homeless, so she sought donations from casinos and area restaurants.

Mrs. Webster began to feed one or two people daily, then three dozen in need of a meal. She invited them to line up from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday outside her former rental home on Indiana Avenue.

Two decades later, the crowd had grown to about 400 people, who are fed in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church at Pacific and Pennsylvania Avenues.

Hundreds more were fed on holidays. Meals began with a prayer and ended with a gospel sing-along.

"Up to the last minute, the people were still her main concern. They were her life," said Mrs. Webster's daughter, Cecelia Woodard, pastor of the Win International Ministries in Meridian, Miss.

"Besides giving them a meal, she wanted always to give them a sense of self-worth and dignity," she said. "She would say, 'They know they're homeless; we don't need to remind them of that. We just need to feed them and give them their identity back.' "

Inspired by her mother, Woodard has started a program at her own church to feed the indigent.

As Mrs. Webster's health deteriorated, she worried about whether the kitchen would continue when she was no longer able to operate it. She authorized the creation of the nonprofit Friends of Jean Webster Inc. to continue her legacy, said the Rev. John Scotland, pastor of the Community Presbyterian Church in Brigantine, who serves as executive director of the organization.

The kitchen will operate just as Webster had intended it, he said.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Webster is survived by two sisters; one grandchild; and three great-grandchildren.

A viewing will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 17, at the Victory First Presbyterian Deliverance Church, 1013 Pacific Ave., Atlantic City. A funeral will follow at 11 a.m. Burial is private.

Memorial donations may be made to Friends of Sister Jean Webster Inc., Box 5146, Atlantic City, N.J. 08404-5146.