| U.S. News

Pulling the van away from the curb, the retired Baptist minister-turned-Catholic waves goodbye to some of the 89 Hispanic families who have just spent the last 30 minutes filling their laundry baskets and milk crates with free tomatoes, onions, peppers and other vegetables – produce that Newsom begged for and collected from an Indianapolis company shortly after he awakened at 4:15 a.m. on this sunny, steamy morning.

Now, as a gold crucifix bounces around his neck – a gift from the families he has just helped – Newsom weaves the van through the city’s near-westside, heading toward a place that he views as a beacon of hope and promise in an area scarred by poverty, crime and drugs.

The place is called “Anna’s House,” a clinic and learning center that will offer food, dental care, medical help and educational services, including tutoring and computer training for children.

Scheduled to open on July 29, Anna’s House is Newsom’s dream to make a lasting difference in the lives of people who struggle against the odds. The house is named in honor of Anna Molloy, a 10-year-old blond-haired, brown-eyed member of St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis, who helps Newsom feed the poor from her wheelchair.

“I named it for her because of her hard work and her love of Jesus,” Newsom says. “She’s on oxygen all the time, and she still keeps coming out to help me.”

Newsom parks the van and walks across the street toward Anna’s House.

“People have come together,” he says, his face beaming. “They said, ‘I’ll pay for the siding. I’ll pay for the plumbing. I’ll pay for this and that.’ It’s more than what I hoped for. It’s more than what I dreamed.”

A need to give more

The story of Newsom’s dream overflows with long hours, complete faith, tireless energy and inspiring anecdotes.

Start with the Thanksgiving nearly 20 years ago when he arrived in Indianapolis from Tennessee to serve meals of turkey, potatoes and vegetables for the poor.

Newsom loved helping, and he loved seeing the grateful looks on people’s faces, so he excitedly asked the other ministers, “What are we going to do tomorrow?” When they told him the event was just once a year, Newsom didn’t understand. He wanted to do more. He had to do more.

He now helps the poor at several locations across the city. He and his volunteers set up tables and stock them with the fruits, vegetables, salads, breads and meats he has collected – so it looks like a grocery store; so it gives the people a choice and a sense of dignity.

Today, people of different faiths contribute to his efforts, but Catholics were the only ones who helped him when he started, he says. He gives special credit to Father Steven Schwab – now the pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis – for leading him to the faith.

“That’s the first person who ever helped me,” Newsom says, recalling when he met the priest at St. Luke Parish in Indianapolis. “I’ll be forever grateful.”

Father Schwab downplays his role: “Lucious is Catholic in his bones. He has a sense of the sacramental. He has a great sense of devotion to the saints. He’s been fascinated with St. Jude for a while. The idea that there’s a patron saint for impossible causes caught his attention.

“Lucious has a sense of a very specific call to serve the poor in a ministry that is completely ‘hands on.’ There is something of St. Vincent de Paul, Dorothy Day and St. Katharine Drexel in Lucious.”

Salvation on the streets

As Newsom stands outside Anna’s House, a man from the neighborhood approaches him. The man tells Newsom his electricity has been disconnected and he needs help paying the bill for $149.

“If I get you part of it, how much can you come up with?” Newsom asks.

The man says he needs $60. Newsom gives him the money as the man tells him, “I get upset sometimes, but then I go back and talk to God.”

“That’s your only hope, man,” says Newsom, a member of Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Parish in Indianapolis. “I want you to go one time with me to church. I’ll take you to Mass.”

The man says he’ll consider the offer, thanks Newsom again and walks back toward his house. A minute later, a homeless man pushes a shopping cart past Anna’s House, a shopping cart that contains crushed cans and a ragged copy of the New Testament. Newsom greets the man like a friend and listens to his story. Newsom promises to return later in the day to help the man get into a shelter. He also gives him $20. The two men hug in the middle of the street.

Two minutes later, a mother walks from her home toward Newsom. The skyline of Indianapolis – about a mile from where he stands – can be seen in the distance.

“I’ve known Lucious for nine years,” says Laura Butcher, 33. “He’s done a lot for this neighborhood. ...