COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Central Ohio has always been home for Sue Zerman, a mom of three, grandmother of six and an educator for nearly three decades, until she retired in 2013, allowing her to spend more time with her family and in the kitchen.

“I love to cook, I love to bake and I love to feed people,” said Zerman.

So when the pandemic hit in 2020, when so many were desperate for help, Zerman began to think of ways to take her passion from her home to the streets of her hometown.

“So, I had seen on a newscast about a blessing box and didn’t know what they were and so, I thought, it’s such a cool premise to think that you could put food and people can access it,” said Zerman. “It’s a take what you need, leave what you can. And so, I went to my next-door neighbor, my husband, and I said, ‘Hey, can you build a blessing box for me?’”

They did — and took it to Linden.

“So, several times a week we go over and fill that and then my sister fills it, my daughter fills it and then other people in the neighborhood or whoever will put stuff in,” said Zerman. “And, it’s helped the neighborhood so much.”

Zerman says she was happy to help that way, but on a winter day in early 2021, she felt she needed to do more.

“I still remember it was a cold, snowy, rainy January day and I told my husband, I said, ‘I can’t stand to think that people are out in this,’” said Zerman. “So I said, ‘I’m going to make some lunches and let’s just go down and see who we can find.’ So the first people we found was a man and a woman sitting underneath an overhang of a business. She was in a wheelchair and he was sitting on the concrete and they were wrapped in wet blankets. And so, we gave them lunches and went home and I made hot chocolate and we got blankets and took it back. So that was that was the beginning. So, we’ve been doing it since then.”

Several times a week, she fills blessing boxes and outdoor pantries, provides warm clothes and blankets and creates lasting relationships with the people she meets along the way, seeing them for what they are — people.

“They are remarkable because I don’t know how they survive in the, you know, freezing temperatures, living in a tent, living on a front porch, living underneath, behind a business,” said Zerman. “I think they are remarkable.”