Meet Doretha, a St. Pete woman who gives away water bottles in the name of kindness

Doretha stands behind the cooler at her ‘Hydration Station’ along Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, where she gives free cold water to anyone who needs it. Credit: Trei Johnson / The Gulfport Gabber

A man crossed Central Avenue from the Grand Central Bus Terminal, approached Doretha’s folding table and asked whether she was giving away water. Doretha smiled, said yes, and handed him a cold bottle. He thanked her, pressed it against his forehead and then his chest before walking back across the street to catch his connecting bus.

A short time later, a man using a motorized wheelchair stopped at the table. Several bags hung from the back of his chair. Doretha asked how he was doing, handed him a bottle of water, and spoke with him briefly before he continued toward the nearby Walmart.

The exchanges lasted only a few moments. Doretha asked for no money, offered no lecture and expected nothing in return. She saw people struggling in the summer heat and decided to offer what relief she could.

A need she could meet

Doretha, who asked that her last name not be published, set up her informal “Hydration Station” outside a shopping center along Central Avenue across from the Grand Central Bus Terminal.

The location draws people transferring between buses, walking to nearby stores, and traveling through the area on foot. Walmart sits about a block away, and people experiencing homelessness also spend time along the corridor.

“I see people going from bus to bus, and I see people going to Walmart and the shopping centers,” Doretha said. “So I thought, ‘It’s a good place to set up.’”

Doretha participates in mission work through her church, but she started the hydration station on her own after thinking about people spending long periods outside in the heat.

“God just really laid it on my heart to just give out some cold water,” she said. “People are out there sweating. It’s hot.”

She stays for a couple of hours or until she gives away all the water, whichever comes first.

“People are grateful,” Doretha said.

This post first appeared at The Gulfport Gabber, which is part of the Tampa Bay Journalism Project (TBJP), a nascent Creative Loafing Tampa Bay effort supported by grants and a coalition of donors who make specific contributions via the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation. If you are a non-paywalled Bay area publication interested in TBJP, please email [email protected]. Help the Gabber keep publishing by making a donation.

Kindness without a catch

Doretha does not ask people why they need water or require them to listen to a message before receiving it. She simply greets each person, reaches into the cooler and hands over a cold bottle.

Her table sits on a stretch of Central Avenue where hardship remains visible. People wait outside for buses, carry their belongings with them or seek a place to rest. A few blocks farther along Central Avenue, the surroundings begin to change as coffee shops, kava bars, restaurants, vape shops, and new residential developments fill the corridor.

Along this busy commercial corridor, Doretha could have treated the heat as an opportunity to make a few dollars selling cold water to residents and visitors. Instead, she gave it away. For Doretha, the heat was not a chance to make a dollar, but a reason to give people something everyone needs to endure it: water.

A bottle of water may seem like a small gesture, but to someone who is hot, thirsty, or accustomed to being overlooked, it can mean more than a few minutes of physical relief. It can show that another person cared.

Her effort will not solve homelessness, poverty, or the other hardships affecting the people who pass her table. It does, however, meet one immediate need.

A small effort

People often focus on conflict, cruelty and the ways communities fall short. Meanwhile, neighbors throughout Pinellas County quietly share food, offer rides, check on strangers, and use what they have to make someone else’s day easier.

Doretha filled a cooler, made a handwritten sign and gave a few hours of her time. She did not need an organization, a campaign or recognition. She saw suffering in front of her and chose to reduce it. Sometimes, hope begins that simply.

Kindness Lives Here is an occasional series highlighting people who quietly make life better for others throughout Pinellas County. Their actions show that making a difference does not always require a grand gesture. Sometimes, a simple act of kindness can ease someone’s struggle, offer hope and remind them that they have not been forgotten.

Kindness Lives Here highlights people helping others throughout Pinellas County. Know someone whose kindness deserves recognition? Send it to Trei at [email protected].

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This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 05, 2026.

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