During his sophomore year a year ago at Walton High School, Emory Paul was a teenager with a mission to play a role helping homeless people in downtown Atlanta.
He started an organization called Soul Supplies to provide individuals with backpacks of toiletries, hygiene products and other daily living essentials.
Paul and a few others would travel to Woodruff Park and drop off those supplies. Along the way, he said he learned more about those who live on the streets but who remain largely invivisible.
“We want to humanize people,” Paul said. “They become homeless in many ways. Many of them have just fallen on hard times. We shake their hands, ask their names, try to get to know them.”
As a result, he estimates that he and Soul Supplies volunteers have helped more than 150 people, delivering 3,000 items that have been collected through donations, from more than 200 donors thus far.
“I’m excited with what we’ve done on a small scale,” Paul said, who got Soul Supplies started through the Giving Point Social Innovators Academy.
As his junior year comes to a close, Paul has been planning the next phase of his project. He just completed paperwork and other tasks to make Soul Supplies a non-profit, enabling it to partner with other organizations and businesses.
“I’ve always had a passion for helping the homeless,” he said. “I want to do more, but I just didn’t know how.”
Each backpack is filled with around $40-$50 in supplies—among other things soap, deodorant, brushes, handwipes, socks, lotion, non-perishable snacks, toothbrushes and toothpaste and water bottles.
Before heading to Woodruff Park, Paul said he researched where the need for such provisions would make sense. Some of those he meets do go to shelters on occasion, but the supplies are designed to be used wherever someone may spend time.
Soul Supplies is accepting donations of items for the backpacks—including the backpacks—as well as financial donations.
He said they’ll be glad to pick up items at your curbside, given the Coronavirus social distancing guidelines.
More information on getting involved can be found here, and a temporary PayPal link can be found here while Soul Supplies awaits its business account.
He’s also gotten involved with an organization called Atlanta Survival Program, which is helping provide food supplies for those affected by COVID-19.
Paul said this year he’d like to reach 1,000 people through Soul Supplies. “The sky’s the limit,” he said, because the need remains significant.
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