Heroes of the Virus

As America continues to recover from the worst medical catastrophe of the past 100 years, one remarkable legacy will be the stories of the ordinary individuals who held us together

- By Jeremy Greenfield, Caroline Fanning, and Kristen Warfield

One Hand Washes the Others

When public health officials started telling Americans that hand washing is one of the most powerful weapons against the spread of the coronavirus, Terence Lester wondered, What about the homeless? Lester had been homeless himself for a time as a teenager, and today he runs a nonprofit in Atlanta called Love Beyond Walls that helps raise money for and awareness of homeless people. He knows all too well that in the best of times they are lucky to find a public bathroom that will let them in to wash up occasionally, not to mention several times a day.

Lester’s experience creating temporary shelters with his nonprofit led him to another idea: temporary handwashing stations, the kind you see at outdoor music festivals. He mentioned the idea to his friend Lecrae Moore, a Grammy-winning Christian rapper, who eagerly donated enough money to buy 15 of the $150 washing stations. They called their project Love Sinks In. “If leaders in this country are asking people to wash their hands, we also have to provide the tools to people living on the margins of society who are more prone to catch and spread the coronavirus,” Lester says.

After its success in Atlanta, the group sent sinks to Birmingham, Alabama; Oakland, California; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas, where a partner organization installed the sinks in parks and other public spaces, thanks to a $13,000 grant from Google. (In addition to the startup funds, it costs about $500 a month to keep each sink stocked with soap and clean water.) One Atlanta hand-washer, Sam, made sure his gratitude didn’t go unnoticed. He left a note on a sink that said, “Thank you all for not forgetting about us.”