There ought to be a revolving door in front of the Parish Outreach Center at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church. People go there for help, needing money, food or someone to talk to. They leave. Later, when things are going better, the same people come back to volunteer their time or donate food or money. A continual flow of give and take runs through the place.

For 20 years, St. Rose of Lima, in Massapequa, has kept that door revolving, providing all types of services from helping people to pay overdue bills when financial burdens become overwhelming, to helping the unemployed, to visiting the sick and lonely. The combined efforts of parish regulars including Sister Loyola Curtin, Pat McDermott and Jean Maloney, as well as a network of over 150 volunteers and the continuing support of the community, make it possible.

St. Rose's tradition of helping people, however, didn't start with the inception of the outreach center. Before the Catholic Charities of the Rockville Center Diocese initiated Parish Outreach in the mid-1970s, a group of 35 women worked together on what was called the Bargain Box, part of St. Rose's community service program. According to Sister Loyola, head of the Parish Social Ministry, they helped pay bills and saved hundreds from losing their homes when they couldn't pay the mortgage. The women, many of whom are still with the Merrick Rd. church, also provided clothing and visited people who needed the company.

"That was really unique. These women started to do what I'm doing before anybody thought about it," she said. "We had a basis for [the Parish Outreach] because of the foresight of these women.

When the time came to develop a parish outreach program at St. Rose, the foundation was already laid. About 20 years ago, Sister Loyola came to the church to build on that foundation.

Sister Loyola came from a background of helping those in need. A sister of St. Joseph's in Brentwood, she began her career teaching in elementary schools. She went on to specialize in teaching the deaf and worked in various areas in Brooklyn and Nassau and Suffolk Counties before coming to St. Rose.

McDermott, a social worker who handles crisis intervention, counseling and acts as a community liaison for the Parish Outreach, got involved when a priest from St. Rose asked her if she would like to do some part-time clerical work for the church. Since she was looking for something to do with her time since putting her youngest child at the time in kindergarten, she agreed. While, McDermott was working at St. Rose, she earned a master's degree in social work and over time expanded her role there.

Sister Loyola and McDermott joined forces with the Bargain Box's 35 volunteers, to develop what would become the Parish Outreach Center. Maloney joined the group a few years later. Currently, she works there three days a week doing a variety of things, including helping people who call or walk in, to administrative tasks.

Over the years, the outreach center has grown to offer many services to people regardless of their religious affiliations. The center's food pantry, which thrives off the donations from schools, local clubs, other churches, etc., now feeds about 70 people a month. Parish Outreach offers employment services. Five retired volunteers help those who have lost a job or are looking for a new one by putting together resumes, and helping to find leads and training. Outreach also sponsors numerous drives including ones for food, towels, and clothes.

The holidays provide another opportunity for Parish Outreach to lend support. During Thanksgiving, the center, with the help of volunteers, provide people who can't afford the turkey and all the trimmings, with holiday baskets and preparations for Christmas are already in full swing. McDermott is in the midst of collecting wish lists of Christmas presents for financially depressed families and passing them along to people or organizations who can afford to absorb the cost of those wish lists. It is a project, she said, that usually has her running around the mall on Christmas Eve still picking up wish list items, but she added it wouldn't be Christmas if she wasn't running around the mall like a "lunatic."

Besides attending to the material needs of people, St. Rose has also been active in attending to their emotional needs. A number of bereavement support groups and other support groups were created over the years and the outreach center also has a certified counselor on staff who sees people free of charge and gives referrals when necessary.

Yet, although St. Rose's Parish Outreach has developed a wide array of services, it has not always been apparent to those working for the program how to find or reach those in need. McDermott said while poverty, unemployment and other hardships seem to be highly visible in the inner cities, it's much harder to detect on the clean, orderly streets of Massapequa.

Still, the absence of chronic poverty or a nationally infamous crime rate does not mean that Massapequans do not experience their share of hard times. But, according to Sister Loyola it does make it more difficult to determine where help is needed.

It was easy to know who needed help in the inner city, said

Sister Loyola, who spent years working in areas such as Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She said the people she came in contact with were openly poor and the issues she had to confront were clear.

"When you wanted to do community organizing, it was terrifically simple," she said. "You can organize the people because they had a reason to be organized, but if you came here, there would be no way, as you walk around here, to know who the people [in need of help] are."

McDermott said,"Both Sister and I have been in homes in Massapequa where the lawns are so manicured and the outside is so beautiful and inside there's no heat. LIPA is shutting off the electricity because there is no money. So that's very sad. It's a different kind of poor."

McDermott and Sister Loyola have seen financial crisis hit people who are used to being on the giving, not the receiving end of charity and they said these people often find it difficult to ask for help. McDermott added that corporate downsizing and mergers are just two examples of financially-crippling events that often devastate families who are dependent on the income of a business person in the family.

She doesn't doubt, however, that asking for help is difficult for anyone who finds himself or herself needing assistance. "It's hard to come and look at a strange face and say help me. It's a very difficult situation no matter who you are or what your circumstances are. It's very difficult to put your hand out because you're putting yourself on the line," said McDermott.

Trying to take the stigma out of asking for help is another important part of what they do at the Parish Outreach, according to McDermott. Fortunately, she said, in the case of financial woes, the condition is usually not chronic and eases in time. She and Sister Loyola said they often have to explain to people that the hardships they are experiencing are temporary and they will soon be putting food back on the pantry shelves.

"I can't tell you how many people we have assisted over the years who have come back and put food on the shelves, but when they come in [for help], they don't believe me when I tell them that," said McDermott.

For Sister Loyola, one of the most rewarding aspects of what she does is seeing someone they have worked with and watched better his or her life come back to the church and help others.

The other thing she finds rewarding is watching the parish's volunteers grow and develop their talents through the work they do with the church. In fact, Sister Loyola takes very little credit for what's accomplished by Parish Outreach. She said it is the center's staff and 150 volunteers, who she calls "ministers," that actually do all the work. She is mostly there to oversee the entire operation and to help people use their own particular talents in responding to the cmmunity's needs, she said.

"She's a wonderful motivator," said McDermott about Sister Loyola.

Still, they both agree that the volunteers are indispensable to Parish Outreach.

"There are no glory hounds here," said McDermott. "We're only as good as our volunteers."

Sister Loyola, who calls them "ministers," believes that the word "volunteer" does not do them justice.

"You volunteer to do a car wash on a Saturday and then it's over," she said. "You volunteer one day to do a blood drive. But when you spend like a year visiting someone every week . . . it's a deeper thing. It's like something that touches the heart."

And to hear them tell it, it is no wonder there are so many dedicated "ministers" working for the St. Rose's Parish Outreach.

Sister Loyola described Massapequa as "terrifically generous." McDermott agreed.

"It's a wonderful community that's so responsive," she said. "You really have to sit where I sit to understand that they're just such wonderful, caring people. I can't say that enough. I say that all over the place. We're very fortunate."