TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Tampa man spends six mornings a week in downtown Tampa giving out coffee, donuts and fruit to the homeless. Jim Kwid feels like he\u2019s doing God\u2019s work across the street from the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
When Kwid sets up a table with a large coffee maker and food next to a food truck at 6 a.m., a group of regular homeless residents shows up soon afterwords.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got some juices for everybody,\u201d he said \u201cCoffee. Hot coffee. Some fruit. Some donuts. Man does not live on donuts alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A lot of Kwid\u2019s mission is to engage people in caring conversation. That was the case for a man in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if I forgot your name, you haven\u2019t been here in so long,\u201d said Kwid to the man. The man replied that his name was Jeff. Kwid got Jeff a hot coffee with some sugar and a donut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are my friends every morning,\u201d said Kwid about his relationship with the homeless. \u201cHow blessed am I to come out here and see these people every morning and say hi, and have a cup of coffee with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwid mostly relies on donations from Sacred Heart members and his own funds to pay for everything. He loves to joke with his regulars about their coffee preferences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve developed a friendship with Aaron,” Kwid said. “Problem is that his middle name is Sugar. He\u2019s going to put me out of business because he eats too much sugar in the coffee. Isn\u2019t that right,\u201d he said to Jeff and let out a hearty laugh.<\/p>\n
Regulars like Bryon Harvey respect what Kwid does for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a good guy. He really cares,\u201d said Harvey. \u00a0\u201cAnybody that comes out and has to get up at crazy hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwid feels like he is following the teachings of Jesus by doing something for the homeless near the church.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know the exact scripture, but Jesus said something about I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. And the Apostles said we never saw you hungry or thirsty and Jesus said for whoever you did it for the least of us you did it for me,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cSo, I kind of stick to that a little bit and if I can help. I can help.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Tampa man spends six mornings a week in downtown Tampa giving out coffee, donuts and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[767,2297,770,2296,28,276,115,772,2298,135,137,136,835],"class_list":["post-275070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-community","tag-app-everyday-heroes","tag-community-news","tag-everyday-hero","tag-florida","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-rick-elmhorst","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}