BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE

Peg Phillips carries two cans of soup. A friend is sick, and Phillips has turned to the traditional remedy to help.

Months ago, she would have struggled to buy one can. But now, Phillips has food stamps.

She is one of about 730 Fredericksburg residents who qualified for food stamps, but who had not enrolled.

The reasons vary, and for Phillips, it was just too hard to make it in to the Fredericksburg Department of Social Services. So Bonnie Newcomb, the city's new community-based eligibility worker, meets clients where they are.

Phillips has no car, and an ongoing battle with cancer has made it hard to get around. Many days, she walks from her tent to Micah Ecumenical Ministries on Princess Anne Street, where she and other homeless people can get breakfast, a bag lunch, shower, clean clothes and other services.

And now, she can meet her social worker without having to walk the additional mile to the city social services office on Jackson Street. By bus, she said, the ride could take more than an hour.

Newcomb doesn't spend her days meeting clients in the office. She meets them at nine different locations: at Micah, at the Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic, at the Bragg Hill Family Life Center and other places.

She's part of a new effort to find residents who could use food stamps and Medicaid--but haven't applied.

"They don't want to come into the office; it's the whole stigma of charity or welfare," Newcomb said.

The city started the program last October with a grant from the Mary Washington Hospital Community Service Fund.

So far, the program has exceeded expectations, said Christen Gallik, assistant director of Fredericksburg Social Services. In the first three months, 86 new clients enrolled in food stamps and 35 in Medicaid.

And many clients said Newcomb helps in a variety of ways.

Her schedule and tasks vary wherever she goes.

At Micah, she meets many people such as Phillips, who qualify for food stamps but who can't come to the office or who forget to reapply.

She stops by the Community Health Center of the Rappahannock on Tuesday nights, the time set aside for the uninsured.