GT Davis, The Blessing Box Guy

A note from GT:

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Up to about my forties I lived life like anyone else. Working a lot of overtime at United Airlines as an Aircraft Mechanic trying to make ends meet and put our kids through college, the usual stuff. Then in 1994 I got a phone call my father had been killed in an auto accident by a drunk driver.

I knew my father as a father and not much else. I knew he was a Superintendent of Schools and worked hard. What I didn’t know until the memorial after the funeral how many people’s lives he had touched. People would come up to me and shake my hand telling me how my father changed their lives for the better. I didn’t know these things. My father didn’t discuss his volunteering or extracurricular activities outside our home. It inspired me.

Then in the year 2000 for reasons I won’t get into I was off from United Airlines for a month and my fellow mechanics collected money to support me and my family through that time.

Those two events set me on a new journey. To serve my fellow man. I felt I owed my fellow mechanics for what they did. I did everything I could from volunteering to help others in their jobs to just doing their jobs while they could eat lunch or just to take a break.

But I wanted to do more. It began when a fellow mechanic was killed on the job. So me and my best friend in the world Ramon decided we would do Benefit BBQ’s. We would buy the necessary supplies with our own money and pay ourselves back after the BBQ. It morphed into a week long BBQ with our labor union and company management voluntarily purchasing the food for us. The Company would also take myself and Ramon off the clock, still being paid, so we can focus on the BBQ’s. I would say we collected close to $200 thousand dollars putting all our BBQ’s together and 100% of that went to the recipients or their families.

Then one day not long after, I was driving to work in November and on the radio they announced how the Denver Rescue Mission were like 5000 turkeys short and it was like a week from Thanksgiving. This broke my heart.

So I created the “Turkey Roundup” to collect frozen turkeys from Airport Employees at DIA, Denver International Airport. We would collect a couple hundred turkeys each year along with monetary donations.

So fast forward to retirement. I knew I wanted to do volunteer work after I retired. Not long after retiring I volunteered with the Meals on Wheels in Pueblo. I enjoyed it very much and learned there are too many people being neglected and left hungry. I volunteered there twice a week for about a year and a half. So I decided to do more. I wanted to volunteer somewhere that had a real need for help. I signed up at the Pueblo Soup Kitchen but about 2 months later the pandemic hit and being an old guy my wife and I decided to isolate and be safe. Time went by. Spring and Summer went by and as I watched the news every day they covered the food crisis in our country. Lines hours long for food. Food Banks were running low and so many were struggling. It broke my heart and I felt guilty I wasn’t doing anything. But what could I do? How can I be safe from the virus but yet help these struggling families?

I seeked out an answer on the internet. I found several individuals who built their own Blessing Box or Little Free Pantry. The idea grew from a woman back East. The Little Free Pantry. That’s it! I can do that! I’ll build a Blessing Box in my front yard. I contemplated for a couple of weeks whether to build it or not. I finally decided, you know what? Something inside of me popped and there and then I decided to listen to that voice that keeps pushing me to do it.

So I built it and by golly they came. Within a few hours of turning on the Blessing Box on Christmas Eve it was filled with donations from my community. Through Facebook and a Neighborhood group I posted information about the Blessing Box and how it worked and to this day our community has readily and lovingly supported this idea. This movement. What once was one is now 29 and growing. So much so I have now added volunteers to deliver our communities donations. 

Finally, thank you all for supporting this cause and helping us put food in mouths. Clothe those in need. Provide assistance to other organizations when possible.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

GT Davis, The Blessing Box Guy