1 · Finding the Door
Away from the countryside, where the hum of the city’s machinery fades and the air grows thick with the smell of damp soil and hay, I’d found myself on a brief sojourn to the hamlet of Gallipolis, Ohio. I rolled Josie down a broken street—Monday morning, gray light, the Vanagon’s engine coughing out the night’s chill—and smelled damp wood smoke and river mud. For three days I’d idled in this French-named town waiting on a back-ordered prescription, walking the levee, counting barges shoving coal north. I was restless, coffee-starved, and half-mad for conversation that wasn’t my own echo.
A place called "Poppy's Coffee, Tea, and Remedies" sat just off the road, tucked into a row of local establishments located downtown. Its hand-painted, modest sign beamed out an inviting vibe to all wanderers, wayfarers, and souls who’ve lost their way.
I killed the ignition, patted Josie’s dash, and stepped into drizzle. As I opened the door, a small faded note in the corner of the plate glass window caught my eye: Food Pantry Inside for Children & Homeless—Come In and Just Ask. I filed the notice in the mental junk drawer where curiosities rattle until they demand inspection.
The door creaked like a hymnbook hinge. Inside, low Edison bulbs glowed orange over plank floors scarred by decades of boot heels, offering up a cozy, homey atmosphere. One whole wall boasts handwritten greetings and well-wishes—pilgrims from Memphis, Mumbai, Marietta—layer upon layer like graffiti in a boxcar church. Steam curled from an espresso wand; the shop smelled of cinnamon, fresh baked bread and wet wool.
Before I could find a corner table, a mountain of a man loomed beside me, wiping hands on a burlap towel. “Mornin’. I’m Greg Hill—folks call me Poppy. What can I brew ya?”
Six-four if an inch. Beard a tangle of iron filings shading to silver. Big paws, but eyes soft as river silt. The contradiction disarmed me. I ordered coffee, black. He nodded like that answered larger questions.
2 · Four Requests and a Question
I’d planned to edit some pictures and my rat’s nest of notes, but the shop itself became the study. Within the first hour of sitting in the place, no less than four people came in looking for some kind of handout, free food (not from the pantry), free coffee, or both. Each request was met with an upbeat, warm, and inviting greeting—the kind that passes for everyday fare in small towns. No cash register rang for those transactions; compassion moved in quieter currency.
And that's when I knew there was more behind this coffee shop than its bookshelf full of homeopathic remedies. I knew I had to know more about this place serving as an unassuming front for something much bigger than first met the eye.
It was a better story than I could have imagined...
You see, it wasn't long ago that Greg and his wife, Lori, stood at the helm of something most wouldn’t associate with virtue. They ran the largest porn and head shop in town—a place that carried the dark, seedy secrets of men and women looking to fill the empty hours. But that was years ago. Life, they’d tell you, takes unexpected turns, and sometimes you find salvation in the places you least expect. Almost overnight, they found a faith that turned their lives completely around. They sold out of the incredibly lucrative porn trade and took over a struggling coffee shop.
3 · From Porn to Psalms
The first week in charge they cleared some shelf space in the shop’s eight-foot-by-ten office—and stocked it with cereal and other dry goods. “We figured five, ten neighbors might stop by,” Greg said. “The Lord had bigger math.” Word spread; bags of beans and diapers crowded every corner. When the closet burst, they rented the vacant storefront next door, then another. Lori filed paperwork, and Court Street Ministries was born—food pantry, hot-meal kitchen, clothing room, prayer booth, all wedged into three adjoining buildings on Court Street. (Court Street Ministries - WhyHunger)
Every Thursday, volunteers ladle chili and dish out USDA surplus to more than three hundred clients—families, veterans, and the lonely. Lines snake down the block. Expenses hover near desperation, but “somehow,” he grinned, “God restocks freezers when we’re down to frost.”
4 · Lori in Motion
While Greg narrated, Lori buzzed around the coffee shop. Between bites I watched her orchestrate a ballet of charity—answering phone, jotting volunteer schedules, correcting a coffee order, signing delivery invoices—all without misplacing her smile.
It’s Lori who keeps the engine running here, a one-woman dynamo who, alongside Greg, manages not just Court St. Ministries but also the cozy little coffee shop that has become a sanctuary for the town’s wanderers. And somehow she finds time to volunteer at the local Lion's Club and Rotary Club.
Lori is the kind of woman you meet once in a lifetime. Tireless and resolute. she moves through the coffee shop with the surety of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing and why. She’s quick to give, but she’s no pushover. There’s a balance in her heart—an understanding that while charity must flow freely, it must also inspire those who receive it to give back. I watched as she gently admonished one long-time “patron” of the coffee shop—a man who had taken from the kindness of others long enough.
“It’s time to start giving back,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “Be here Thursday. We need help feeding those folks, and you’re gonna be part of the crew.”
Her words were not a command, but an invitation to join something greater than oneself. And maybe that’s what makes Lori and Greg so special. They see every soul as part of the community, not just recipients of charity but participants in the grand story they’re writing, one meal at a time.
5 · The Envelope in My Pocket
I carry a dozen envelopes on this tour, each fat with a $1,000 stack of 50 $20 bills. I opted for stacks of 20’s because I liked the heft of it. Handing over ten 100 bills seemed, well, rather slim. I stashed them in a banker’s pouch and put them in a secret compartment under Josie’s driver’s seat.
The plan: find twelve nodes of hope, quietly seed each with a thousand dollars, record what sprouts. No press releases, no tax receipts. Just a handshake of currency.
Ten days of travel, and I had yet to choose the first recipient. I’d talked myself into prudence, waiting for some perfect narrative. Greg and Lori’s coffee shop offered up rust-belt generosity—my ribs hummed yes. Yet I hesitated. Would money sully the grace already in motion? Would it embarrass them?
I spent the day touring the Court St. Ministries facilities. What had started as a part-time pantry and blossomed into a full-time commitment. There were now three entire buildings given over to storing food, one had freezers stuffed in every corner to hold the spare USDA meat that came in. I winched thinking about the electric bill. In addition to the coffee shop, there was also a thrift store–no charge for anything taken if you could’t afford it.
Lori admitted that sometimes supplies ran thin. “God finds a way to provide,” Greg said. “Always has, always will.” The envelope in my pocket grew heavier by the syllable.
7 · What a Thousand Dollars Buys
At the end of the day I sat down with Greg and Lori to thank them for their time, generosity and hospitality. I told them they were exactly the kind of people the Hope & Generosity Tour was looking for. “For all you do, and because I know you never ask for anything in return, I’d like to give you this,” I said, sliding the fat $1,000 slack their way. “It’s a thousand dollars, cash, no strings attached. Do whatever you want with it. Keep it, give it away or buy something for somebody. You know where the need lies better than I do.”
Their eyes welled up. Greg caught his breath and told me the story of George Muller who, at the turn of the century, took in and cared for hundreds of orphans. He never asked for money. “The lord always provided,” Greg said, wiping a tear away. “We’ve been wondering how we pay the electric bill for those freezers,” he said. “We hadn’t told anyone.” He held the stack of 20s aloft like a loaves-and-fishes prop. “God just provided,” he said.
8 · Afternoon Debrief
As I was headed back out to Josie, crickets sang; humidity clung. Lori intercepted me and asked if I could use a “real bed,” a shower and a place to stay for the night. I know enough to never turn down the hospitality of strangers. Turns out that they have a refurbished one-bedroom apartment above the main Court St. Ministries building that they use just for such occasions. I gratefully accepted their offer.
9 · Leaving Court Street
Next morning I found Lori rattling around in the coffee shop’s small, tidy kitchen. She pressed a paper sack into my hands—scones and prayers folded like origami cranes. “Road fuel,” she winked.
I rolled south along the river. In the rearview, Court Street shrank to a pin, but the envelope’s echo filled the van. One thousand dollars—fifty $20 bills—had evaporated into the electric bill, enough to keep the freezers running one more month. Yet the gift grew heavier as miles accrued: weight measured not in currency but consequence.
10 · Reflections on a Billfold Sacrament
Money is a peculiar sacrament. Give it to a stranger at a gas station and it buys silence. Give it to Court Street Ministries and it multiplies—into Thursday chili, into volunteer purpose, into dignity for a man washing pans for the first time instead of waiting for a handout. Steinbeck’s Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath says, “Wherever there is a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.” But sometimes you aren’t there; you hand your fight to someone better placed.
Greg and Lori will still scramble for rent next month. My envelope was a breath, not a resurrection. Yet breath is what keeps a body moving between miracles. Maybe that is the Hope & Generosity Tour’s hidden thesis: become breath for lungs short on air, then move on before ego wants applause.
Josie rattled over a pothole, silverware clinking in the drawer. The Ohio shimmered beside us. I thought of the line: food pantry inside—just come in and ask. What a daring invitation: just ask. How many of us shrink from need because we fear request? Poppy’s door swings open five days a week, coffee steam mingling with vulnerability.
11 · Epilogue: Ledger of Another Thousand
I pulled onto a bluff overlook, cut the engine, watched barges muscle downstream. In my notebook I created a new page: Gallipolis, OH – Court Street Ministries – $1,000.
Below, a ledger not of dollars but echoes:
- freezer rent paid
- Porn king to prophet
- camo-jacket volunteer scheduled Thursdays
- pantry lights stay on one more month
- Hope never dies
I closed the book. The sun punched through cloud breaks, setting the river on fire. Somewhere back in Gallipolis Lori arranged cans by expiration date, Greg wiped counters, and someone in need walked through the door and mumbled shyly about whether the sign in the window offering food was true.
The thousand dollars no longer existed, yet it pulsed—an unseen current looping through the veins of a town too stubborn to quit the riverbank and too generous to let hunger claim its own.
Josie started on the second crank, as if eager to chase the next miracle. I shifted into gear, believing for the first time that my pocket held eleven more sunrises exactly like the one Court Street Ministries would greet tomorrow—doors unlocked, coffee brewing, faith stacked beside cans of green beans, ready for whoever just came in and asked.