Police said the driver was traveling southbound on Park Street when they hit Everett, who was in the roadway. Everett was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
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The driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators, police said. JSO said the investigation remains ongoing and there were no pending charges as of Monday.<\/p>\n
William Darnell, the founder of Saved 2 Serve, said he had known Everett for about eight years. The Jacksonville street ministry works with people experiencing homelessness and families in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was one of our special, special guys,\u201d Darnell said.<\/p>\n
Darnell said Everett became more than a friend to those at the ministry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times where he was a brother, there were times that he was a son,\u201d Darnell said.<\/p>\n
Darnell says Everett experienced homelessness while pursuing his education. He earned an associate degree and a master\u2019s degree in journalism and hoped to become a sports reporter.<\/p>\n
Darnell said Everett was a sports fan who enjoyed talking about the Florida Gators, Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots. He also volunteered with several ministries each week and was known for putting others first.<\/p>\n
One Christmas, after Saved 2 Serve had spent the season helping people on the streets, Everett and friends saved money to surprise Darnell.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey saved up money, and they took me out to dinner,\u201d Darnell said. \u201cWhen they took me out to dinner as a surprise, it was like such a special moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Darnell said Everett will be remembered for his \u201cradiating personality,\u201d smile and laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was that type of guy where he just, you know, he always loved to put people first,\u201d Darnell said.<\/p>\n
A celebration of life for Everett is planned for 4 p.m. Sunday at Lift Ev\u2019ry Voice and Sing Park in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friends are remembering Thomas Everett as a familiar face in Jacksonville\u2019s outreach community after he was hit and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-381424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381424","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=381424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}