This teen math tutor found new way to help Bibb County during coronavirus pandemic
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MOREWhy we are publishing this series
Even in the coronavirus crisis, Georgians are looking out for each other, helping their neighbors and working from the front lines of hospitals and grocery stores to keep us safe and fed.
Portraits of a Pandemic is a limited series that focuses on people in our community taking on the coronavirus in their own small yet meaningful ways. We hope these stories connect you with other Middle Georgians, and entertain you, challenge you or simply give you hope.
If someone you know is playing a part in combating COVID-19, no matter how small, help us share that story by emailing us at breaking@macon.com.
Haaris Ahmed was donating his time as a math tutor when the coronavirus outbreak made in-person instruction all but impossible.
Ahmed, 17, a volunteer for the Mentors Project of Bibb County, found another way to help.
Since mid-March, Ahmed has made dozens of food deliveries to people in need — more than 100 meals in all.
“It’s quite unfortunate what’s going on right now, especially for people who are not able to get food,” Ahmed, a junior at Stratford Academy, said recently. “Going out and helping people is something I’m quite passionate about.”
Mentors Project director June O’Neal said Ahmed is always texting her, “Miss June, what can I do next?”
“He’s a wonderful young man,” she said. “He is quiet, he is unassuming, he is professional, he does whatever you ask him. He never grumbles.”
Ahmed plans to continue making deliveries of canned goods and other non-perishables as long as the Mentors Project has food to give.
Typical delivery runs for him begin at O’Neal’s house. She gives him recipients’ addresses and he delivers everything from cans of beans, corn and beef stew to potato chips and cereal.
Ahmed, who wears gloves during his deliveries, knocks on doors and sets the food down.
“I think I’ll learn more about how life works for everybody, for different types of people and what each person has to go through,” said Ahmed, who hopes to have a career in the medical field.
Because of social distancing, he doesn’t get to talk much to the people he delivers to.
In fact, he has little interaction with the recipients.
But before he heads back to his car, they often tell him something.
“Pretty much all of them,” he said, “have said, ‘Thank you so much.’”