The blessing box mission
Clinton law firm takes on challenge of helping others
-
Helping to stand up the new blessing box next to the playground at Black Oak Baptist Church on Thursday, Oct. 1, are David Adkins, left, of the church and Clinton lawyer Bruce Fox, whose firm built and donated the box. - G. Chambers Williams III
-
On hand Thursday, Oct. 1, for delivery of a new blessing box to the Black Oak Baptist Church are, from left, the pastor, Dr. Lee Hickman, Kelley Adkins, David Adkins, Wendy Poulson, Kelly Davis, Quenton Johnson, and lawyers Bruce Fox and John Willis. - G. Chambers Williams III
They call them “blessing boxes,” these wooden cabinets that are popping up in public areas all over Anderson County, filled with non-perishable food and occasionally other necessities for the use of people in need.
The concept has been around for a while, but the recent expansion of blessing box locations in Clinton and neighboring communities has been the work of lawyer Bruce Fox, a partner in the Clinton-based law firm Fox Willis Burnette, PLLC.
“We built our first one in late January, before COVID hit, and our initial intent was to build just one, behind our office in downtown Clinton,” Fox said during a recent interview with The Courier News. “That was just our first one, and now we have 18 built and 12 of them already installed. The 13th is going in this week.”
Most of the blessing boxes built and installed by Fox’s firm have gone in front of elementary schools throughout the county, with the first of those at Norwood Elementary in Oliver Springs and the second at Andersonville Elementary, Fox said.
Another of the early ones was installed at Lake City Elementary, where Fox went to school when he was growing up.
The newest box was delivered last Thursday (Oct. 1) to Black Oak Baptist Church, where it will be installed next to the playground at the church on Black Oak Road just west of Clinton.
Other locations include North Clinton, South Clinton, Dutch Valley and Claxton elementary schools and the preschool on north U.S. 25W in Clinton, as well as three churches on the Knox/Anderson county line, Fox said. Coalfield School also is scheduled to get one.
“The best part is the delivery,” he said. “I get hugs from the principals, who are thrilled to get the boxes at their schools. I’ve tried to deliver most of them myself. I get so much joy from the principals, and it just makes my day.”
With the delivery of the boxes, “I give the principals and churches $100 to fill them up,” Fox said. “It costs about $60.
“But the marvelous thing is that other people are taking it upon themselves to keep the boxes filled. We see people coming in from all over filling them up. That’s awesome.”
The idea for Fox’s office to get involved in blessing boxes came from the law firm’s social media coordinator, Tina Courtney, Fox said.
“We built the first box here at our offices, and Tina’s father built the next 11 for us,” Fox said. “Nathan Sparks and his son, Troupe, have built the last six of them, starting in July.”
Dr. Lee Hickman, pastor of Black Oak Baptist Church, was on hand for last week’s blessing box delivery at his church.
“One of our guys in the church saw a post about the blessing boxes on Facebook, and we were just going to make one ourselves,” he said. “But we got in contact with Bruce Fox and he offered to bring one to us.
“Our ladies’ ministry will make sure it stays stocked,” Hickman said. “I think it will get a lot of use. There is so much traffic on this road, especially since people in Dutch Valley come through here to go to Oak Ridge.”
The boxes aren’t without some controversy, at least in Rocky Top, where a woman in early September began a Facebook campaign to have blessing boxes removed from the city.
She is Katie Styles, 27, who says she’s running for Rocky Top City Council as a write-in candidate in the Nov. 3 general election. She is vowing to get the three blessing boxes removed from the city in an effort to run off homeless people in the downtown area.
Fox said he has installed only one of his blessing boxes in Rocky Top, at the elementary school. There are two more in town, including one in front of City Hall. But the one Styles has focused on is at the school. She claims that it draws “drug addicts and pedophiles” to the school, endangering the children, Fox said.
Styles told the Courier News on Tuesday (Oct. 6) that she has now rented a house in Rocky Top so she could be eligible to serve on the city council, and showed the newspaper her new driver's license reflecting that address.
When she announced her candidacy in late August and registered to vote in mid-September, she listed her address as a property in an unincorporated area of Anderson County (her parents' home) that has a Rocky Top mailing address. She must live within the Rocky Top city limits to be eligible to serve on the city council, according to the city charter.