Chicago man's tweet asking for 10 volunteers to help clear snow for elderly draws 120 after going viral

Community organiser Jahmal Cole, 34, who runs My Hood My Block My City initiative, overwhelmed by response to appeal

Jahmal Cole with his volunteers (Jahmal Cole/The Washington Post)

Chicago was hit with a snowstorm over the weekend, and Jahmal Cole's inbox blew up with requests from elderly neighbours: They needed help shovelling in front of their homes. Some had to get relatives to a hospital. Others had oxygen tanks and were afraid of being trapped.

So Cole sent out a tweet Friday night asking for 10 volunteers to come to his neighbourhood, Chatham, on the South Side of Chicago, to shovel the foot of snow that was accumulating. Chatham is a community that's largely elderly and African American.

When he went to the train station Saturday morning to see whether anyone had showed up to help, he couldn't believe what he saw. About 120 people stood on the platform, many with shovels, ready to work.

They came from all backgrounds and all parts of the city.

“The people who showed up, they showed that whether people have privilege or don't have privilege, everyone recognises a need,” said Cole, a community organiser.

His tweet has been shared by more than 22,000 people and was liked 64,000 times. The majority of the volunteers were from outside Chatham.

One man had taken a bus from Indiana, Cole said. A 70-year-old woman came with her own shovel, ready to dig in.

Cole tweeted:

He sent the volunteers out to dozens of addresses that needed snow cleared. But not everyone came with their own shovel, and Cole quickly realised he needed more. So he ran to a store and bought 25 of them.

Cole, 34, runs a nonprofit organisation called My Block My Hood My City, and he said the money for the shovels came from sweatshirts he had sold on his website. The group helps kids on the South Side expand their horizons beyond their neighbourhoods. But the snow shovelling wasn't an official initiative of his organisation. He just wanted to help his neighbours.

“When you're getting emails and calls, you don't want to let people down,” said Cole, who was born and raised in Chatham. “I wasn't trying to make a campaign. This was literally me trying to help out my neighbours. We had to organise on the spot.”

He said his request received so much attention that people from across the country started offering money and wanted to buy him a snowblower.

“I'm a really, really small nonprofit. We have two full-time staff, two part-time staff,” he said. “I don't have anywhere to put a snowblower. I put all these shovels in my own garage. I don't even have an office space.”

After shovelling dozens of sidewalks and walkways, a job that lasted until about 3pm, Cole and the volunteers went out together to have lunch at a neighbourhood restaurant.

“I'm proud of our city. We're getting things done,” Cole said. “People could have been doing anything in the world. They could have been home with families or making snowmen, but they came out to help.”

More people showed up Sunday, a smaller group, and they continued to shovel.

Cole said that he has been shovelling for his neighbours for years and that for the past several years, he has put out a call for volunteers. In the past, he has gotten about 20 helpers. He said he's not sure what made so many people respond this year.

“It represents an enthusiasm this city hasn't seen in a while,” he said.

The Washington Post