Staff Photo by Ashlee Culverhouse/Chattanooga Times Free Press - June 22, 2012.
David CookWhen Terry Lee Melton's two-story garage burned to the ground, it left behind a pile of ash and debris so tall she couldn't see over it.
"Taller than me," she said.
Melton lives in East Lake, like four generations before her. At 73, she moves slowly, especially after a recent seizure. On a fixed income, she goes without a phone to pay for groceries.
How would she get the ash and debris cleaned up? Who would help? Was all that ash and debris a code violation? How would she pay for a dumpster to haul it away?
"No help was there," she said.
How to help
To get involved contact Chris Robinson at Proj52.com.
A week went by. Then a month. Another. And another.
Then, one morning two weeks ago, she woke up to a most wonderful surprise: all these people coming through her chain-link-fence gate, like some army of compassion. Teenagers. College students. Adults. They carried shovels. A truck appeared and unloaded a dumpster.
By sundown, they'd cleaned up the entire mess.
"A blessing," she said. "God opened up the gate, and here come all these people."
The orchestrator of Melton's garage clean-up is a man named Chris Robinson, who organized the labor, paid for the dumpster, and shoveled up garage ash for hours. How did he know about Melton? I'll get to that.
First hear what Melton, with tears in her eyes, had to say about Robinson.
"By meeting him, it made me believe there are still good people in this world," she said. "The presence of them brought out the Christianity in me."
Robinson, 54, is a pastor. And sociologist. And professor at Covenant College. (He's also a marathon runner, janitor, youth director, property manager and, most important, husband and father.)
A few years ago, Robinson started Project 52, or P52. He had just left a pastorship in a large suburban church with thousands of members, and felt a calling to turn his Christianity upside down and inside out. Taking his theology to the streets, he vowed to do one project a week, every week, for an entire year - 52 projects, or P52 - that were devoted to helping widows, senior citizens, shut-ins, the sick, the poor, the least of these.
"There are a lot of hurting people out there," he said.
Hence, P52. It's the conduit between those in need and those who can help. Each week he sends out an email to more than 100 individuals, businesses and churches that tells them about the current week's project. Since 2011, his team has finished more than 300 projects. They've painted the homes of AIDs patients. Cleaned up tornado debris. Fixed dilapidated porches, bathrooms, handrails, siding. Installed washer/dryers. Cut down trees. Cut up trees. Hauled off trees.
It's a church-to-the-streets theology: We serve God by getting our hands dirty serving others.
"The Yellow Pages lists 917 churches in Chattanooga," he said. "That's 917 widows or families below the poverty line that they could reach out and adopt."
After leaving the big church, he became part-time pastor at rural, 50-member Hope Fellowship in North Georgia. Folks there fell in love with Robinson's idea.
They have no youth ministry, but kids and parents go serve in the community. Families sponsored widows. Young married couples clean up the yards of the elderly.
"It's Jesus' Magna Carta," said Robinson. "We are called to take care of people."
Recently, P52 has stumbled onto a new gem of an idea.
"We're working with code officers in LaFayette and Walker County and Chattanooga," Robinson said.
When local governments find residents whose homes violate codes or need repairs, they have begun contacting Robinson. It's an act of mercy: Instead of citing people for code violations, governments turn to Robinson and P52.
A huge oak tree falls in the yard of a 90-year-old who has neither the health nor money to cut it up.
Walker County calls P52.
A family can't afford a lawnmower, and the grass in their yard grows out-of-control tall.
LaFayette calls P52, which now cuts that yard every other week.
A senior citizen on a fixed income lives in a house desperately needing a paint job.
The city of Chattanooga calls P52.
(In that case, Robinson partnered with the local Son Servants, which brought in college students to paint the woman's house the color of "applesauce cake." Then, since it was her birthday, they baked her a real cake and celebrated.)
"The possibilities are endless," said Vanessa A. Jackson, with Chattanooga's Office of Economic and Community Development. "We end up almost getting a call every day from someone who is in need of some type of home repair."
Jackson - she's the one who called Robinson about Melton's burned garage - said the city has a goal of helping more than 200 homeowners with their needs, but it takes people like Robinson and P52 to do that.
"Rake yards, cut yards, clean gutters," she said. "There is a wide variety of needs."
Robinson's annual budget is under $25,000. He drives a dented Ford, and sometimes puts the leaf blower in the passenger seat. Wherever he goes, he carries two things:
His Bible.
And a punch list of projects - repair porch, pressure wash house - from here to North Georgia.
For Robinson, they go hand-in-hand.
"It's transformed my life," he said. "I wish I could take every Christian and expose them to what the need is in their backyard."
Contact David Cook at dcook@times freepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.