By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
Anthony Crawford received more than a delicious meal when Urban Purpose, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering the homeless through ministry, relationships, and service, welcomed visitors to its day shelter in downtown Birmingham.
The 74-year-old also got a chance at free painting lessons and to fellowship with volunteers. “They didn’t look at you as good or bad. They looked at you in truth and who you are,” said Crawford, of the many volunteers who have worked with the organization throughout the years that kept him coming back.
Urban Purpose held an early Thanksgiving lunch last week that offered turkey, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, candied yams, green beans, and homemade pound cake for more than 100.
“Typically, at our [day shelter] what you normally see when you come in is our friends doing laundry or getting a hot shower,” said Allison Strickland, Director of Community Engagement for Urban Purpose. “We have clothing closets, hygiene kits. You’ll also see friends sitting around watching movies or a TV show, reading a book, playing chess, or scrabble.”
But last week was different. “We don’t always serve meals. We normally have pre-packaged nutrient snacks but today we did something special for Thanksgiving [including] free painting and teaching people a couple of different ways to paint with different brush strokes,” she said.
The painting was led by Larry Thompson, Associate Dean of the School of Arts at Samford University. One of the goals was to build a little confidence, he said.
“For me personally, I find art to be very healing thing,” he said. “I know it’s helped me in my life just as a way of expression to do something positive, even, you know in light of some negative circumstances, and certainly for a homeless person, giving them a moment of beauty and a moment of joy, maybe it just lifts them up in some way and makes their day better. If that’s what is accomplished, then it was a good day.”
Thompson said he also learned about gratitude.
“One of the [volunteers] said something about how she was thankful for that day and then she asked everybody at the table to share what they were thankful for … I said I was thankful for my two dogs and then I explained my reason that my wife has recently died of cancer and my two dogs, while they certainly haven’t taken the place of my wife, there’s just a love and caring relationship that has helped me heal with my dogs.”
“When I said that, two other people at the table spoke up and shared that they had also lost their spouses relatively recently. Just through that conversation you find that even though my circumstances are very different … we had some common thing that we could share. Just finding those human connections where you can have empathy for someone in their circumstances. “
Cordaro Simmons, a member of the Distinguished Brothers of Pride of North Birmingham Lodge No. 319, was another volunteer who came away touched by the visit.
“We got a chance to help serve Thanksgiving lunch to a lot of people who are in need that were grateful,” he said. “A lot of them thought we were very warm and welcoming. It was good to have a place that was very warm, comfy, and felt like home and sitting down to dinner with family and friends.”
