Doug Ownbey, of Brainerd, assembles backpacks filled with provisions for homeless people.Bill Ownbey, 61, works at a candy factory. He does shift work at Wrigley Manufacturing Co. on Jersey Pike, operating a machine that makes gummies.
Quietly, Ownbey, who lives in Brainerd, has become one of Chattanooga’s most interesting, small-scale philanthropists.
About eight years ago, the hourly worker decided to buy some cheap backpacks and fill them with provisions to help homeless people in downtown Chattanooga make it through the winter.
To decide what to buy, he said, he imagined himself stuck on the streets.
“I thought, ‘If I were hungry or cold or needed to get out of the rain, what would I need,'” he explained.