Join
On a bustling Selfless Saturday in Baltimore, the smell of home-cooked spaghetti and barbecue rises from aluminum bins below an I-95 overpass. Rich Akwo, the monthly event’s founder, mingles with nearly 400 homeless men and women as they receive their hot lunch, though Selfless Saturday offers far more than food. Some attendees take showers in a truck equipped with private stalls. Others receive haircuts, sip coffee, or sift through racks of clothes. Many accept not only toiletries and snacks from roughly 100 volunteers, but drug counseling, job advice, and mental health services.
“To receive a haircut, to receive a shower, to receive a clean set of clothes it’s dignity restored,” says Akwo, founder of the nonprofit Generosity Global. “One homeless man told me a mac-and-cheese dish reminded him of how his grandmother used to cook. He was emotional. We have many stories like that where people have hope again because they know that someone actually cares.”