‘WITH DIGNITY COMES HOPE’
Woman provides free hygiene items to Linden-area neighbors in need
Two bedrooms in Tammy Jewell’s small house resemble the homegoods aisle of a supermarket.
Shelves stacked from floor to ceiling overflow with laundry detergent, shampoo, tampons and toilet paper. Bottles of bleach line the floor. Purses filled to the brim with tissues, razors and cold medicine slump together in a pile.
No, Jewell isn’t prepping for the apocalypse.
The Linden resident runs God’s Hygiene Help Center, which provides free personal-hygiene items to the 150 people a month who knock on her door seeking assistance.
She founded the nonprofit in 2011, but Jewell’s awareness of toiletry inequality began as a child in Mount Holly, New Jersey, where she spent most of her childhood until her family moved to
Columbus when she was 14.
Her mother spent several years in prison for assault, leaving Jewell and her siblings shuffling among foster homes. When their mother returned, they had no money for shampoo or other essentials.
“We didn’t have no soap or water, so we was dirty white folks,” said Jewell, 57. “I just quit going to school.”
She sought protection from her chaotic family situation through a string of abusive boyfriends, including one who pawned her to a sex ring in New York City for $500.
Jewell escaped to Ohio on a Greyhound bus eight years later, in 1988, and launched an escort service to provide for herself.
During the next two decades, she slowly rebuilt her life, kicking a cocaine addiction, giving birth to a second daughter and finding God, whom she credits with the idea for God’s Hygiene.
While cleaning out a neighbor’s garage in 2011, Jewell felt a nudge to turn the unused space into a resource center an arrangement the neighbor agreed to in exchange for Jewell mowing her lawn.
When a former client left her $5,000 upon his death, she asked her brother to put up shelves, bought an abundance of toiletries and gave them out to the two dozen or so Linden-area residents who'd heard through word of mouth about free supplies. (She moved the items inside her house several years ago after they froze during the winter.)
Once the money ran out, Jewell, who lives on $771 a month in disability payments after suffering two strokes, relied on small donations from her mother and younger
daughter, plus coupons that her older daughter saved to keep providing the items.
In 2014, a chance encounter at LA Fitness led her to Diane Hendrickson, a member of Upper Arlington Lutheran Church who invited Jewell to attend a service.
The church’s support came faster than floodwater in a basement.
“They took their arms and they put them out and they held me and they keep me held tight,” Jewell said through tears. “That’s all I ever wanted my whole life. I always wanted protection and love. And I looked for it in all the wrong places. But finally, I found it when I got to church. I’d never been loved like that before.”
Church members contribute the $2,000 a month it takes to keep the Help Center stocked. Six of seven board members also attend Upper Arlington Lutheran, including resources and administration director Terry Starr.
“She’s truly God’s angel," Starr said. "She has such a heart for people. If someone has a need, she wants to help them.”
During the past few years, Jewell’s ministry has expanded from her answering the door with a tube of toothpaste in hand to aiding the homeless, underresourced children and teenagers in danger of leaving school.
She introduced a second God’s Hygiene Center in August, at the Douglas Community Center in Linden, where she also hosts community events to reach more people in need.
Three to four families stop by for items on the days the center is open (Tuesdays through Saturdays), according to Douglas manager Manney Clarke.
"Tammy’s been a huge blessing in terms of giving back to the South Linden community and neighbors," he said. "She’s told us, 'Don’t turn anybody away.'"
In addition to the hygiene centers, Jewell organizes “Clean Start Baskets” — a laundry basket full of personal and home goods for men recently released from prison; “Purses of Love,” filled with personal-care items such as tissues and lip balm for needy women; and a yearly back-to-school party in Linden, at which she gave out 250 backpacks last year.
Jeff Dickerson showed up at Jewell’s door two years ago in search of basic household items.
After three heart procedures and a leg amputation, he could no longer fulfill the requirements of his pastoral position and now relies on disability payments to live.
The Linden resident, 52, can’t remember exactly what she gave him that day, but he knows it came in abundance.
“She just kept grabbing things,” he said. "‘You need this? You need that?’ The world needs a lot more of that.”
He continues to receive hygiene products from the center each month. In return, he volunteers on her prayer team at community events.
It’s the least he can do, he said, when she has given him so much.
“You never heard a ‘me’ or ‘I’m going to do this,’” he said. “It’s always, ‘What do you need?’”
Jewell, who is often spotted in a baby-blue “God’s Hygiene” polo shirt, is never too busy to make a peanutbutter sandwich for an addict or hunt down a pack of diapers for a mother in need.
She knows what it’s like to hide behind the curtains for fear of public shame.
“With dignity comes hope,” she said.
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