For Mollie Reinhart, it was the sound of a voice that changed everything. That was the moment the woman on the other end of the line became human.
Mollie had volunteered for the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building, pitching in here and there and experiencing fleeting moments of satisfaction knowing she was helping to make someone’s situation better, particularly the children from low-income families, who make up as much as 37 percent of Richmond’s children.
Then one day, the handwritten letter arrived addressed to Mayor Stoney. The writer had recently lost her job, and with the holidays fast approaching, she was hoping City Hall could help her find gifts for her son. Even though the application deadlines for Angel Trees and Christmas Mother had passed, the letter found its way to Mollie, who was determined to help a desperate mother make her son’s Christmas more beautiful.
Mollie contacted her. She needed more information about the boy – his age, height and interests, for example – to find the right gifts. And so she called her – one mother to another.
“It really changed me to hear her voice,” she recalls. “I had done something like this before, but without ever really meet anyone. And her voice was so sad and robotic, almost like she had given up hope, even though she had remembered to write that handwritten letter to the mayor.”
Soon after the phone conversation began, Mollie knew she had to meet this woman. The next day, she picked her up from her home in Creighton Court and they drove to Walmart on Nine Mile Road, where the mother selected a handful of modest gifts from the shelves. They bought wrapping paper, scissors and tape to make the gifts look Christmassy.
Then something surprising happened.
“The unexpected result was that we met,” Mollie says. “We were both mothers. We had sons. They both liked sports. They were into mischief. We both love them and want them to have a good life. And so I got this insight into their lives and just saw all the things we had in common.”
That experience in 2017—and similar experiences in the years that followed—led Mollie to start a new nonprofit called Befriend. Its premise is based on the unexpected outcome of a friendship that was born out of Mollie’s gift-buying experience. Simply put, the organization brings people together to get to know each other, build new relationships, and be “united by compassion.”
“First of all, there is no higher purpose than to make those connections and understand each other,” she says. “There is no charitable element whatsoever. Our society is too segmented and we all live in our own little silos. So let’s break down those walls and start chatting with other people who wouldn’t be in our circle and see what happens next. Our goal is to create positive change by sparking curiosity, connection, compassion and ultimately social capital in our community and beyond.”
