POP/ROCK - Nov. 4, 1987

The director of a Grand Rapids, Mich. soup kitchen where singer El DeBarge is serving 136 hours of community service says she fears publicity will draw a crowd of unwanted fans. “I wanted to keep this as low-key as possible. Now it’s possible we may have to let him go,” said Barb Raaymakers, director of God’s Kitchen, after a local television crew disrupted the soup kitchen Monday. DeBarge, 26, a Grand Rapids native, began work Oct. 28. He was sentenced in 1986 to pay a $100 fine and perform 80 hours of community service after pleading no contest to creating a disturbance. The term was increased because he missed an appointment with a community service worker. Raaymakers said DeBarge has gone beyond what he was assigned to do at the kitchen, but she declined to be specific. “I won’t let him sing,” she said.