Southmoreland student helps the homeless
In the United States alone there are over half a million people without a home, a quarter of them children. Jennifer Firestone of Scottdale has made a difference for three of them.
Recently, while on a break as a “service champion” at Taco Bell in Mount Pleasant, Firestone witnessed a man outside the restaurant; he had a camping backpack and a jug of water on a string.
“I thought that if he was homeless, I’d buy him dinner to be nice,” said Firestone.
Firestone introduced herself and brought him into the restaurant. She said she purchased six tacos to share with him, as well as a free drink. While they ate they also talked.
The man, who identified himself as Matt Parham, said he is originally from Memphis, Tennessee. He’s been walking all over the country for five years, and said his favorite place he’s visited is southern Arizona.
“He said it was warm enough but wasn’t humid, unlike here,” said Firestone.
As an aspiring EMT, Parham also writes books about his travels and publishes them at face value. He writes about his travels and some of the things people have done for him. Mormons are reportedly “the sweetest people he’s ever seen.”
“I started to really like him and admire him because he’s been on the road for five years and decided to keep walking,” Firestone said. “I think he’s very admirable. He wasn’t negative; he was a very positive person. He was almost in tears when I offered him a drink and food.”
It was then she decided to offer him a place to stay.
Firestone returned to her job, looking up hotel rooms for Parham when two teenagers came into the restaurant. The young couple, Jeremiah (16) and Tracy (17), paid for their order with spare change of quarters, nickles, and pennies. When asking about the nearby hotel, they went to leave Taco Bell to find out its location. Firestone then became suspicious that they, too, were on the streets and had them sit with Parham. She treated them to free drinks as well.
The couple, locals to the area, were “in the same boat” as Parham, with nobody willing to help them. They had been on the street for a month, sleeping in abandoned houses and roaming the streets. In one of the abandoned houses they said they encountered a bear.
“I was in tears,” said Firestone, “They were some of the sweetest people I ever met, and they had to sleep on the road that night. I would stop by every once in a while to make sure they were OK. I started cleaning their trays with them and asked if they wanted to sleep in Matt’s hotel room with him, and Matt was okay with it.”
Firestone continued searching for decent hotels that didn’t cost a lot of money, finding a Day’s Inn in New Stanton. She booked a reservation, an act that was free until she made it to the hotel. However, it was “scary” because she was unsure how to transport the homeless there.
Mason Fox, a friend of Firestone’s who once helped her get an old man on a bus, was willing to help her out. It took some “convincing,” but he was persuaded after she shared that they did not touch her purse or wallet, which she left at the table with them.
After work, Firestone was taken by her mother to Sheetz in Scottdale to take money out of her bank account to pay for the hotel room. She left the homeless at the restaurant. When she returned to Taco Bell for Fox to pick them up, Tracy was in tears “because she wasn’t expecting her to come back.”
“I think they were all awestruck,” said Firestone.
Parham told Firestone: “I’ve never met someone so young and so kind. I used to think the Mormons were the sweetest until I met you.”
Fox then picked the four of them up from Taco Bell and drove them to the hotel. Firestone was “borderline tears the whole time” and was attempting to figure out ways to pay for one night, even considering taking donations from students at school to keep the homeless off the streets.
Firestone paid for the room and walked them there, which was down a few stairs and past a laundry room. When the group saw the laundry room, they stopped and asked, “They have washers and dryers here?” The girl, Tracy, cried because “she can have clean clothes again.”
Tracy then asked to hug her. “She gave me the tightest hug I have ever received, and she bawled into my shirt,” said Firestone. The other two also hugged her, Parham saying, “The next time I write a book, this will be sure to be in it.”
Before leaving, Firestone gave the trio her number “eight times.” This included writing on Tracy’s arm, on Matt’s hand, and on a Post-It note.
“This is the nicest thing anyone has done for me, and I can’t believe a 16-year-old is doing this for me when my own friends wouldn’t let me stay at their house,” Tracy told Firestone.
When she left, Firestone said the stairs they had walked down before “were the longest flight of stairs she had ever went up.” She made sure to tell the woman at the desk that the homeless were the nicest people she had ever met, and the woman told her that the couple had visited the night before asking to sleep in the lobby.
The following morning Firestone called the hotel, asking if they had checked out of the hotel; however, the trio were still asleep. Jeremiah eventually texted her, asking if she could help pay for an Uber from Greensburg to Mount Pleasant. Firestone hadn’t heard from Parham again, but she knows he is heading for Philadelphia “just to say he’s been there.”
Firestone said the experience was “very humbling.”
Mia Rocco
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