One Good Thing: Theft leads to community giving in Miami

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Two days before Thanksgiving, on the eve of a turkey giveaway for dozens of jobless residents in an impoverished Miami neighborhood, Sherina Jones got word that one of the free community refrigerators she'd been stocking was stolen.

It could have been a holiday disaster. But it turned into a Christmas miracle.

Jones had been helping to feed the poor in Miami for months. Early on in the coronavirus pandemic, she was forced to shut down her beauty salon. By scrimping she managed to get by, but she knew that many in her mostly Black, low-income neighborhood were still hurting.

Worried that children were missing meals after COVID-19 closed schools, the 36-year-old cancer survivor used her meager savings to buy her first community refrigerator in August.

“Take what you need, donate what you don’t," the sign on the fridge read.

Jones gets up at 5:30 every morning to serve hot breakfasts to residents in need. One homeless man who was a frequent visitor later told her proudly that he'd gained 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms).

With an online fundraising effort she named Village Freedge, Jones expanded to three refrigerators, which she placed in different neighborhoods of Miami. About half of her clients are homeless; others are day laborers who take to-go lunches or single moms who can’t feed their kids.

When one of the refrigerators was stolen just before the Thanksgiving Day turkey giveaway, it was more than a theft. It felt like an act against a community in need.

“I cried for three days," Jones said. "I was devastated that someone would do something to hurt the community. You hurt the 80-something people I feed a day.”

Just when it seemed the Grinch-like act would ruin the holiday, something magical happened: Residents of a community...