Birmingham School Board member Sherman Collins Jr. challenges citizens to do 42 acts of kindness in memory of late wife
By Chanda Temple
“Clink! Clink! Clink” go the quarters as Sherman Collins Jr. drops them into an expired parking meter next to a stranger’s car.
“That should help somebody,” he says as he buys $2 worth of time and moves to the next meter in downtown Birmingham.
His actions today come with a special meaning. He’s doing them in honor of his late wife, Katrina Bethune Collins, who was always helping strangers in the smallest of ways.
“She wanted to bless people,” Collins says. “She’d buy people lunch. Feed expired meters. It didn’t have to be someone’s birthday. She would buy flowers and take them to (people’s) grandmothers.”
Birmingham School Board member Sherman Collins Jr. with his wife and their children. Photo credit: Special