Operation BrotherhooD FOUNDER

Belle Whaley, a native of Pine Bluff, AR., held a mid-level job with the Chicago Department of Human Resources in the 1960s. She left to convert an abandoned Packard dealership at 3745 W. Ogden Ave. into Operation Brotherhood, a lifeboat for the elderly poor of the neighborhood.

Belle Whaley, 72, known as ''the First Lady of Lawndale,'' quit her job for the City of Chicago in 1969 to feed and care for the poor, elderly and handicapped of her community. She started Operation Brotherhood in 1970 and later was a co-founder of the Chicago Food Depository.

''We take about $300,000 in government money and turn it into $500,000 worth of help to these people,'' she told the Tribune in a 1981 interview. The difference, she pointed out, came from thousands of volunteer hours on the part of herself, her late husband, Eugene, and many others.

The central feature of Operation Brotherhood has been the serving of hot meals to the elderly.

In 1988, the Community Renewal Society gave her its highest honor, the Victor F. Lawson Award. She also received top awards from the League of Black Women, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Operation PUSH, the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

A resident of Lawndale, in 1990, she died on a Sunday afternoon after being struck by a car at Pulaski and Roosevelt Roads.

She had three sons, Horace, Herman and Harold; a daughter, Gloria Williams; two brothers; and several grandchildren.