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The Happy Helpers: Amber Coffman
"What can one person do?" I hear people ask. "The problems of society are so vast!" The answer is that one person can do a lot. Every great movement starts with one person and moves forward because of individuals. Today, as we confront homelessness in America, it's easy to say, "There's nothing I can do." In fact, a great many people are doing something to help the homeless, in churches and volunteer programs all across the land. One of these heroes is a fifteen-year-old girl I met in a small town in Maryland.
When Mother Teresa came to Washington early in June 1997 to receive a gold medal from Congress, Speaker Newt Gingrich invited several colleagues to his office to meet her. Impatiently, we went out to the hallway and waited for her with a group of nuns. All of us, politicians and nuns alike, stood in reverent silence. When the elevator door opened, a small, seemingly fragile woman exited by wheelchair, smiling and lifting her hand to her lips in a prayerful act of humility. Back in Newt's office, Senators and Representatives lined up to greet her; Mother Teresa's love, humility and inner strength filled the room.
For decades, her spiritual energy reached out to countless lives, all around the world. On a visit to Glen Burnie, Maryland, a few weeks after I met Mother Teresa in Washington, I saw a dramatic example of the impact she had on the lives of others.
I had driven to Glen Burnie to meet fifteen-year-old Amber Coffman. Two months earlier, at the President's Summit for America's Future, in Philadelphia, I had heard that Amber had done a remarkable job of feeding the homeless and I wanted to see for myself.
Amber's mother, Bobbi Coffman, a gentle woman in her thirties, met me in the parking lot in front of her small, drab apartment complex. It was clear that working families lived here, many of whom were probably struggling financially. Bobbi took me to meet Amber and her volunteers. Inside the apartment, almost filling the small living room, was a table surrounded by kids making bologna and cheese sandwiches. I knew immediately which one was Amber. A slender, pretty girl with long, dark hair, she had the quiet aura of a born leader.
Working with her around the table were boys and girls, white and black, ranging from tiny six-year-olds to strapping sixteen-year-olds. They wore sneakers, T-shirts, jeans and cutoffs like any group of American kids, but they were different. On a Saturday morning when they might have been sleeping or hanging out at the mall or playing soccer, they had gathered to help others. Amber calls her program Happy Helpers for the Homeless, and these young people, and others like them, have met in the Coffman living room every Saturday morning since February 1993 to serve the homeless people of Glen Burnie and Baltimore.
Bobbi and Amber's apartment is a part-time kitchen for serving hungry homeless people. The worn couch in the living room was stacked with hundreds of buns for the sandwiches. The cramped kitchen was filled with cartons of juice. Big yellow mustard jars were scattered around the dining room. The young volunteers filled the rest of the apartment with their energy and laughter as they slapped together sandwiches with assembly-line efficiency. Their innocence and generosity, as they carried out this labor of kindness and love, brought tears to my eyes. Too often, growing up hardens our hearts and blocks our "childlike" instincts to help others.
That afternoon, Amber and her mother told me how the Happy Helpers came to be. Mother and daughter are very close. Amber's father deserted Bobbi before Amber was born. Bobbi served in the army for fifteen years, as a teacher, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. But when the army wanted to send her to a hardship post, where she didn't think eight-year-old Amber would be happy, she resigned and moved to Glen Burnie. In the army, she hadn't had time for volunteer work, but in her new life she wanted to work "with the poorest of the poor."
Bobbi wanted to volunteer at Sarah's House, a homeless shelter located on the Fort Meade army base, but she would only volunteer if her daughter would go with her.
"I was hesitant," Amber recalls. "I didn't know what to expect. But once we got there I really liked it."
Amber looked after homeless children while their parents took training courses. Both the children and their parents told Amber their stories. "They broke her heart," Bobbi recalls. "Driving home, she would tell me about their lives and we would both cry."
A year later, Amber read four books on Mother Teresa for a book report. "I was inspired," she recalls. "I wanted to start my own programs, to provide meals to people who aren't in shelters. Mother Teresa had dedicated her life to others--I wanted to be like her."
"I told her it was a wonderful idea," Bobbi recalls. "But I told her we'd have to wait until I got another job and saved enough money for us to get started. That took a year. We started the program in February 1993."
Amber had just turned eleven.
It's not unusual for a girl that age to take someone like Mother Teresa for her hero. In fact, Bobbi recalled that, when Amber was only four, her preschool teacher sent home a report that said, "Amber is a leader, and everyone else wants to follow." What is unusual is for someone so young to have the determination, the imagination and the organizational skills to start a program that would reach out to thousands of people in need.
"I knew I couldn't put a roof over their heads," Amber says. "But I wanted to do what I could. I was sure other kids would volunteer if they had a chance. I knew from the first that I wanted to provide meals. And I knew that giving them food wasn't as important as giving them love."
Over the years, Amber had attracted a total of six hundred volunteers. When I met her in 1997, she had about forty "active" volunteers, and each Saturday morning about ten of them would come to the apartment and make six hundred sandwiches. That translates into six hundred slices of cheese, six hundred hamburger buns, and forty-two pounds of bologna, plus the soft drinks, pastries and hot chocolate they serve in the winter. (Sometimes they make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that takes longer.) On Saturday afternoon they distribute sandwiches to the handful of homeless people in Glen Burnie, and on Sunday they drive to Baltimore and give the rest of the sandwiches, along with juice, doughnuts, clothes and blankets, and toiletries such as soap and toothpaste, to several hundred homeless people who line up outside City Hall.
Amber estimates that Happy Helpers for the Homeless has fed more than 25,000 people since 1993, and her work has attracted national attention. When she appeared on the CBS Morning News, people across the country wrote to say they wanted to start Happy Helpers programs in their cities, and several are now under way. Thus, in a mysterious and wonderful way, the spark of goodness has passed from Mother Teresa to Amber, and from her to others all across the land.
Bobbi and Amber's motivation is in large part religious. Scriptural quotations are posted on their refrigerator door. Every Sunday, before they drive to Baltimore to feed the poor, they attend early services at the Heritage Church of God. Today Bobbi has two jobs, during the day as a licensed child care provider and as an employee at the Greenway Bowling Center at night. Bobbi gives all the credit for the Happy Helpers to Amber--"It's not me, it's her," she insists--but it is clear that she is the rock that enabled her remarkable daughter to flourish.
The volunteers are remarkable too. When I asked them why they were there, working for others when they could be out having fun, they made it clear that this was fun.
"It helps people--it makes me feel good," said Jeff Mentzer, a sixteen-year-old from Severna Park, Maryland.
Jesse Pittman, who's seven, said, "I jumped up and down when I heard about Amber's program. My mom said it was a little far away but she'd take me." Her mother, Karen Pittman, explained that they are Quakers and live on a farm near Davidsonville, a half hour's drive away. When Jesse was five, she said, she began noticing homeless people when they went to town. "She just saw them as people," Karen says of her daughter. "She asked why they were on the street. I told her they didn't have homes and we started making sandwiches for them whenever we were going to town. She would give them a sandwich and talk with them and they were so happy to have a child talk to them. Then we heard about Amber's program and she knew she had to participate."
Most of the kids said they'd read about the Happy Helpers in the newspaper and called Amber to volunteer. Who says that kids don't read?
Amber not only directs the weekend sandwich making and distribution, but during the week seeks out businesses and restaurants and grocery stores that will donate food and other necessities to the homeless. Increasingly she is a sought-after public speaker. She doesn't ask for a fee, but when people offer mone...
Présentation de l'éditeur :
"What can one person do?" I hear people ask. "The problems of society are so vast!" The answer is that one person can do a lot. Every great movement starts with one person and moves forward because of individuals. Today, as we confront homelessness in America, it's easy to say, "There's nothing I can do." In fact, a great many people are doing something to help the homeless, in churches and volunteer programs all across the land. One of these heroes is a fifteen-year-old girl I met in a small town in Maryland.
When Mother Teresa came to Washington early in June 1997 to receive a gold medal from Congress, Speaker Newt Gingrich invited several colleagues to his office to meet her. Impatiently, we went out to the hallway and waited for her with a group of nuns. All of us, politicians and nuns alike, stood in reverent silence. When the elevator door opened, a small, seemingly fragile woman exited by wheelchair, smiling and lifting her hand to her lips in a prayerful act of humility. Back in Newt's office, Senators and Representatives lined up to greet her; Mother Teresa's love, humility and inner strength filled the room.
For decades, her spiritual energy reached out to countless lives, all around the world. On a visit to Glen Burnie, Maryland, a few weeks after I met Mother Teresa in Washington, I saw a dramatic example of the impact she had on the lives of others.
I had driven to Glen Burnie to meet fifteen-year-old Amber Coffman. Two months earlier, at the President's Summit for America's Future, in Philadelphia, I had heard that Amber had done a remarkable job of feeding the homeless and I wanted to see for myself.
Amber's mother, Bobbi Coffman, a gentle woman in her thirties, met me in the parking lot in front of her small, drab apartment complex. It was clear that working families lived here, many of whom were probably struggling financially. Bobbi took me to meet Amber and her volunteers. Inside the apartment, almost filling the small living room, was a table surrounded by kids making bologna and cheese sandwiches. I knew immediately which one was Amber. A slender, pretty girl with long, dark hair, she had the quiet aura of a born leader.
Working with her around the table were boys and girls, white and black, ranging from tiny six-year-olds to strapping sixteen-year-olds. They wore sneakers, T-shirts, jeans and cutoffs like any group of American kids, but they were different. On a Saturday morning when they might have been sleeping or hanging out at the mall or playing soccer, they had gathered to help others. Amber calls her program Happy Helpers for the Homeless, and these young people, and others like them, have met in the Coffman living room every Saturday morning since February 1993 to serve the homeless people of Glen Burnie and Baltimore.
Bobbi and Amber's apartment is a part-time kitchen for serving hungry homeless people. The worn couch in the living room was stacked with hundreds of buns for the sandwiches. The cramped kitchen was filled with cartons of juice. Big yellow mustard jars were scattered around the dining room. The young volunteers filled the rest of the apartment with their energy and laughter as they slapped together sandwiches with assembly-line efficiency. Their innocence and generosity, as they carried out this labor of kindness and love, brought tears to my eyes. Too often, growing up hardens our hearts and blocks our "childlike" instincts to help others.
That afternoon, Amber and her mother told me how the Happy Helpers came to be. Mother and daughter are very close. Amber's father deserted Bobbi before Amber was born. Bobbi served in the army for fifteen years, as a teacher, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. But when the army wanted to send her to a hardship post, where she didn't think eight-year-old Amber would be happy, she resigned and moved to Glen Burnie. In the army, she hadn't had time for volunteer work, but in her new life she wanted to work "with the poorest of the poor."
Bobbi wanted to volunteer at Sarah's House, a homeless shelter located on the Fort Meade army base, but she would only volunteer if her daughter would go with her.
"I was hesitant," Amber recalls. "I didn't know what to expect. But once we got there I really liked it."
Amber looked after homeless children while their parents took training courses. Both the children and their parents told Amber their stories. "They broke her heart," Bobbi recalls. "Driving home, she would tell me about their lives and we would both cry."
A year later, Amber read four books on Mother Teresa for a book report. "I was inspired," she recalls. "I wanted to start my own programs, to provide meals to people who aren't in shelters. Mother Teresa had dedicated her life to others--I wanted to be like her."
"I told her it was a wonderful idea," Bobbi recalls. "But I told her we'd have to wait until I got another job and saved enough money for us to get started. That took a year. We started the program in February 1993."
Amber had just turned eleven.
It's not unusual for a girl that age to take someone like Mother Teresa for her hero. In fact, Bobbi recalled that, when Amber was only four, her preschool teacher sent home a report that said, "Amber is a leader, and everyone else wants to follow." What is unusual is for someone so young to have the determination, the imagination and the organizational skills to start a program that would reach out to thousands of people in need.
"I knew I couldn't put a roof over their heads," Amber says. "But I wanted to do what I could. I was sure other kids would volunteer if they had a chance. I knew from the first that I wanted to provide meals. And I knew that giving them food wasn't as important as giving them love."
Over the years, Amber had attracted a total of six hundred volunteers. When I met her in 1997, she had about forty "active" volunteers, and each Saturday morning about ten of them would come to the apartment and make six hundred sandwiches. That translates into six hundred slices of cheese, six hundred hamburger buns, and forty-two pounds of bologna, plus the soft drinks, pastries and hot chocolate they serve in the winter. (Sometimes they make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that takes longer.) On Saturday afternoon they distribute sandwiches to the handful of homeless people in Glen Burnie, and on Sunday they drive to Baltimore and give the rest of the sandwiches, along with juice, doughnuts, clothes and blankets, and toiletries such as soap and toothpaste, to several hundred homeless people who line up outside City Hall.
Amber estimates that Happy Helpers for the Homeless has fed more than 25,000 people since 1993, and her work has attracted national attention. When she appeared on the CBS Morning News, people across the country wrote to say they wanted to start Happy Helpers programs in their cities, and several are now under way. Thus, in a mysterious and wonderful way, the spark of goodness has passed from Mother Teresa to Amber, and from her to others all across the land.
Bobbi and Amber's motivation is in large part religious. Scriptural quotations are posted on their refrigerator door. Every Sunday, before they drive to Baltimore to feed the poor, they attend early services at the Heritage Church of God. Today Bobbi has two jobs, during the day as a licensed child care provider and as an employee at the Greenway Bowling Center at night. Bobbi gives all the credit for the Happy Helpers to Amber--"It's not me, it's her," she insists--but it is clear that she is the rock that enabled her remarkable daughter to flourish.
The volunteers are remarkable too. When I asked them why they were there, working for others when they could be out having fun, they made it clear that this was fun.
"It helps people--it makes me feel good," said Jeff Mentzer, a sixteen-year-old from Severna Park, Maryland.
Jesse Pittman, who's seven, said, "I jumped up and down when I heard about Amber's program. My mom said it was a little far away but she'd take me." Her mother, Karen Pittman, explained that they are Quakers and live on a farm near Davidsonville, a half hour's drive away. When Jesse was five, she said, she began noticing homeless people when they went to town. "She just saw them as people," Karen says of her daughter. "She asked why they were on the street. I told her they didn't have homes and we started making sandwiches for them whenever we were going to town. She would give them a sandwich and talk with them and they were so happy to have a child talk to them. Then we heard about Amber's program and she knew she had to participate."
Most of the kids said they'd read about the Happy Helpers in the newspaper and called Amber to volunteer. Who says that kids don't read?
Amber not only directs the weekend sandwich making and distribution, but during the week seeks out businesses and restaurants and grocery stores that will donate food and other necessities to the homeless. Increasingly she is a sought-after public speaker. She doesn't ask for a fee, but when people offer mone...
A modern-day Profiles in Courage about twenty people who are doing heroic things to improve the lives of their fellow Americans.
Now available in trade paperback, Courage Is Contagious is a remarkable document about everyday people helping to reshape America. Written by Congressman John Kasich, the book profiles twenty men and women from across the country who have, through their own courage, determination, and generous hearts, attempted to improve the lot of their fellow citizens. The values they exhibit, Congressman Kasich argues, are the very values we as a society need to encourage and support if we are to end our nation's divisiveness and fulfill its glorious promise. Among the people Kasich writes about are Cheryl Krueger, who started a successful cookie business that puts people ahead of profits by employing women who often wouldn't be given a chance by other companies; and Dr. Jack McConnell, who, shocked by the poverty outside his neighborhood, organized over one hundred retired doctors, nurses, and dentists to create a free medical clinic that now serves over ten thousand people in the Hilton Head area of South Carolina and has inspired similar volunteer programs nationwide.
A heartfelt and optomistic message in a world grown increasingly distrustful, Courage Is Contagious offers hope and inspiration to all who read it.
Now available in trade paperback, Courage Is Contagious is a remarkable document about everyday people helping to reshape America. Written by Congressman John Kasich, the book profiles twenty men and women from across the country who have, through their own courage, determination, and generous hearts, attempted to improve the lot of their fellow citizens. The values they exhibit, Congressman Kasich argues, are the very values we as a society need to encourage and support if we are to end our nation's divisiveness and fulfill its glorious promise. Among the people Kasich writes about are Cheryl Krueger, who started a successful cookie business that puts people ahead of profits by employing women who often wouldn't be given a chance by other companies; and Dr. Jack McConnell, who, shocked by the poverty outside his neighborhood, organized over one hundred retired doctors, nurses, and dentists to create a free medical clinic that now serves over ten thousand people in the Hilton Head area of South Carolina and has inspired similar volunteer programs nationwide.
A heartfelt and optomistic message in a world grown increasingly distrustful, Courage Is Contagious offers hope and inspiration to all who read it.
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- ÉditeurBantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
- Date d'édition1998
- ISBN 10 0385491476
- ISBN 13 9780385491471
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- Nombre de pages269
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