Erica Robbins could see the highway from her home in downtown Birmingham. She kept noticing the same man sitting under a bridge. One day she went down to check on him. He told her he’d served in the military and had children. From then on, she thought of him as her neighbor.
Robbins began volunteering at homeless shelters. After two years, she asked friends and family to donate hygiene supplies. When she had enough to give away, she drove around Birmingham looking for people who could use them. In 2015, she founded Be a Blessing Birmingham.
By 2021, volunteers were holding regular gatherings at Linn Park. They served breakfast and handed out shoes, clothes, and bags with soap, socks, and other essentials. The supplies changed with the weather. What someone needed on a hot Birmingham morning could be different from what would help them get through a cold night.
I keep coming back to the bridge. From her window, Robbins could see where the man spent his days. It took going down and sitting with him long enough to hear his story to learn anything about the life he’d lived. That conversation changed how she spent her own time. First she gave some of it to a shelter. Then she asked people she knew to give what they could. Eventually, there were volunteers in a city park serving breakfast.
There’s a lot of work between that first conversation and a morning when breakfast is ready and somebody has sorted the shoes. A bag with clean socks and soap is a modest thing to hand someone. It’s also something they can use that day. Robbins started by paying attention to one person close to home. When she had something to offer, she took it to where people were.
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Mark 12:31 (KJV)
Read the original reporting on Erica Robbins and Be a Blessing Birmingham
— JC
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