Jason Reynolds, the national ambassador for young people’s literature, is well known not just for his books but for his commitment to listening to and empowering children, especially those who are underprivileged. This week the best-selling author of “Ghost,” “Long Way Down,” “Look Both Ways” and other middle-grade and young adult books, took that promise to a new level.
On Thursday morning, he tweeted to his 79,000 followers: “Anybody need groceries?”
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Reynolds, who lives in Washington, D.C.’s Kingman Park neighborhood, was flooded with requests from those in need.
“We Could use a hand feeding 6 Grandchildren,” wrote one follower, who included a photo of her family.
“My best friend and her husband are expecting a child in a month and due to the coronavirus, she had to stop working for protection of her health and the baby’s. It would be awesome if you’d be able to help them!” wrote another.
“People thought I was joking at first,” Reynolds said in an email Friday, “until one lady said she needed food for her children. I told her to send me her cash app information, and I sent her some money. Then they started rolling in, and I took care of as many as I could. Probably about 20 to 25 people. Of course, people were texting me saying ‘Don’t let people scam you!’ But that’s never a concern of mine. I do what I’m supposed to do and let the cards fall where they may. Once it got too overwhelming, I implored other people to help out and started to retweet the requests. More people got fed, as it trickled out into something bigger.”
Reynolds didn’t deliver any groceries himself — as a safety precaution, and also because these messages were coming from all around the country. But the stories were so compelling, his desire to lend a hand grew. In one case, a woman with six children told him she’d been laid off from work, he said. “She was telling me how she actually has a job interview next week, and was hoping it would work out. I believe she was in Kentucky. She told me she’d taken the kids down to school, because they were giving away free lunch, and how the kids were upset about eating it, and how she tried to explain to them what was going on, and how hard that was. There were tons of those kinds of stories. College kids far from home with no clue what to do. Middle-aged folks trying to figure out how to provide food for elderly parents. The list goes on and on.”
When people started to retweet the grocery tweet, he says, “it ballooned into a huge thing and the tweets were coming in at a rate I couldn’t quite handle. I also know myself, and I’d keep giving and giving until it jammed me up, y’know? I had to pull back a bit.”
That’s when various Twitter users, including fellow author V.E. Schwab, began replying to the requests with promises of help. Last month fellow author Roxane Gay also turned to social media to give help, offering donations by Venmo and asking others to do the same.
“I made it clear that NO ONE should feel bad if they can’t give, or if they’re uncomfortable with giving this way. But for those of us with a little extra, who don’t mind this, let’s stretch out for our neighbors. No guilt trip. No ego trip. That’s it. Just be a human. People are struggling. More people than we can even imagine.”
It still doesn’t feel like enough, Reynolds says, but he’s going to keep trying to do a little bit at a time.
“I just checked my twitter and there are so many requests, still,” he says. “I’m probably going to go through them and pick a few each day to give to. That’s the best I can do right now. But I’m going to keep retweeting as well, in hopes that somebody will lend a hand. To me, it’s been a reminder that people are inherently good. We may need a little nudge sometimes, but we’re still GOOD.”
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