For Mollie Reinhart, what changed things was the sound of a voice. That was the moment when the woman on the other end of the phone became human.
Mollie had been doing volunteer work for the City’s Office of Community Wealth Building, pitching in here and there, finding fleeting moments of satisfaction knowing she was helping make someone’s situation better, particularly the low-income kids who make up as much as 37 percent of Richmond’s children.
Then one day came the letter, handwritten to Mayor Stoney. The writer had recently lost her job, and with the holidays fast approaching, she was hopeful that City Hall could help her secure presents for her son. Although the application deadlines for Angel Trees and Christmas Mother had passed, the letter found its way to Mollie, who was determined to help one desperate mom give her son a better Christmas.
Mollie reached out to her. She needed more information about the boy – his age, size, and interests, for example – to help find the right gifts. And so, she called her – one mother to another.
“It really changed me hearing her voice,” she remembers. “I had done things like this before, but without ever really meeting anybody. And her voice was so sad and robotic, almost like she’d given up hope, even though she had thought to write this handwritten letter to the mayor.”
Soon into the phone conversation, Mollie knew she had to meet this woman. The next day, she picked her up from her home in Creighton Court, and they were off to the Walmart on Nine Mile Road where the mom picked out a handful of modest presents from the shelves. They bought wrapping paper, scissors, and tape to make the gifts feel like Christmas.
Then something surprising happened.
“The unexpected consequence is that we got to know each other,” Mollie says. “We were both mothers. We have sons. They both liked sports. They get into mischief. We both love them and want them to have a good life. And so, I was getting this look into her life and just seeing all the things that we had in common.”
That experience in 2017 – and others like it, in the years to follow – led Mollie to establish a new nonprofit called Befriend, with a premise built on the unexpected consequence of a friendship beginning from Mollie’s gift-buying experience. Simply put, the organization connects people to meet one another, forge new relationships, and “unite through compassion.”
“There’s not any more of a lofty goal at first other than to make these connections and understand each other,” she says. “There’s not any sort of charitable element. There’s too much segmentation in our society, and we’re all living in our own little silos, so let’s break down those walls and start chatting with other people who wouldn’t be in your circle. Then see what happens next. Creating positive change through igniting curiosity, connection, compassion and ultimately social capital in our community and beyond is our goal.”