The Heart of Detroit: Mother Maude Batie

Transcript of "The Heart of Detroit" Show #4 featuring Mother Batie.

Mother Batie: "...and the voice spoke through here and said to me, go and inquire about that building."

Forty years ago, Maude Batie says she heard God tell her to buy this building in Highland Park. She didn't ask why. She just worked out a price with the owner.

Mother Batie: "I said well I really got something to tell you now, I don't have a job (laughing)."

Despite that, she worked out a financing deal, and she did what God told her to do: She opened a soup kitchen.

Mitch Albom: "Do you remember what you served that first day when there where fifty people?"

Mother Batie: "It wasn't soup."

Mitch Albom: "No soup in the soup kitchen?"

Mother Batie: "Well, I don't really like soup, so... (laughing)."

Mother Batie devotes her life to the simplest good thing; she feeds hungry people. But after 40 years of serving her community, recent cuts in social services threaten her beloved operation.

Mother Batie: "Our last week is coming to a close. Our refrigerators are about empty and by the time Friday come we will close our meals."

She doesn't mince words for legislators who are cutting funding for the poor.

Mother Batie: "Be careful - they close the door on poor people because they bleed just like he bleeds, they love just like he loves."

Unless people come to her aid, a voice inspired by a voice will see her good work silenced. Mother Batie prays as she tries to keep alive, The Heart of Detroit.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Mother Batie
• Maude Batie
• Mitch Albom
• volunteer
• soup kitchen
• feeding the poor
• Detroit
• The Heart of Detroit
• United Sister of Charity
• Highland Park
• Michigan