Al Chapman, a former city official and nonprofit leader who died Wednesday, didn't have to look too far for influence.
"My signature mark is my father, who taught us to work," he said in February at a celebration of his service, "and my mother, who taught us to give, and she made sure we were in church. [S]he kept us in there, and the ones of us who went turned out pretty decent."
Work giving faith. Any Chattanooga life imbued with those attributes has an excellent chance of being a success.
Chapman, 63, was certainly that, having worked hard for many years to give to the community through faith-based organizations. His success didn't come from being an elected leader or a captain of industry but from tens of thousands of small, behind-the-scenes interactions that quietly changed the lives of many.
Following graduation from Dartmouth College, where the late Scott Probasco helped put him through, he was hired by his mentor at American National Bank.
Chapman later was executive director of the nonprofit Inner-City Ministries from 1981-1989 and 1991-1999. That ministry merged with Hope for Chattanooga to become Hope for the Inner City in 2007. He also served as the first director of the city's Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships under Mayor Ron Littlefield in the mid-2000s and later as head of its human services department.
Among other things, the faith-based office coordinated relief efforts among local religious groups after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005. Eventually, more than $50,000 was raised for the many evacuees who came to Chattanooga temporarily or permanently.
Chapman also co-founded and served for many years as president of Front Porch Alliance, a faith-based nonprofit that addresses a variety of needs for families and youth through churches, businesses and other nonprofits. In that capacity, he also served as co-chairman of the Family Faith Night Committee that helped resurrect Family Faith Night at the Riverbend Festival in 2005 after its previous benefactor dropped its sponsorship.
He also served as the first black chairman of the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga and worked with the Rev. Rozario Slack on a program called "The World Needs a Father," which saw more than 500 fathers work in inner-city schools as mentors.
Quiet but connected and kind but forceful, Chapman was "our ambassador and our eyes and ears on the street to know where and what was needed in the Chattanooga inner-city communities," Scott Maclellan, board chairman of Front Porch Alliance, said in February.
He was willing," Kenneth Simpson said of the nonprofit leader, to do "whatever it took to keep a kid on the right road."
What better legacy can there be than that?