O's Brian Roberts Serves As A Mentor At Homeless Mission
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The Orioles head to spring training this month, but before they go, one player is making stops at a men's homeless and recovery center in downtown Baltimore.
Mary Bubala reports Brian Roberts has many friends there, not because of how he catches a ball or swings a bat, but because he listens and cares.
At the Helping Up Mission on East Baltimore Street, hot meals are served to men who are in the process of healing from lives that have fallen apart.
"I could have easily been the guy here, not the one playing at Camden Yards every night," said Brian Roberts.
Most of us know Roberts as an All-Star ballplayer and the Orioles second baseman. But Roberts quietly comes to the Helping Up Mission to serve as a mentor.
"It's just a powerful, powerful place. When you come here and you go to serve a meal and you say, 'How are you today?' and they say 'I am blessed' and you're going, 'If you are blessed, what am I?'" said Roberts.
The two men Brian now mentors -- John Lippold and Jamie Walton -- say the ballplayer is there for them, at any hour of the day.
"To have Brian in my life was a big inspiration in my life, to press on with a goal to complete something that you started and just to be that man," said Walton.
"This guy beams, radiates life and that's what the Helping Up Mission is all about," said Roberts.
Tom Bond is the program director at Helping Up Mission.
He says faith-based mentors like Brian make all the difference.
"It gives them something to hold onto and it gives them somebody that they recognize cares about them," said Bond.
For the men in the program, it's Brian Roberts who happens to care.
"He's just not a major league baseball player, he cares, he's genuine, he doesn't come in for the media, he doesn't want to be recognized. What he does for us at the Helping Up Mission, it's from the heart," said Lippold.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor at the Helping Up Mission, click here.
