More Than Likes is a sequence about social media personalities who’re attempting to do optimistic issues for his or her communities.
To Shirley Raines, they’re royalty: The girl with the paralyzed arm who makes use of a shoelace as a sling. The man whose fingers shake as he opens his bag. The little lady who, when seeing Ms. Raines and her vibrant coif, shouts “pink hair!”
Ms. Raines, 55, gives meals, hygienic companies and unconditional help to folks with out a residence by her nonprofit in Los Angeles, Beauty 2 the Streetz. They are all “kings” and “queens.”
This is how she sees the folks she serves: royals who’ve been dealt a nasty hand.
‘It’s change into a bit of web household’
Ms. Raines desires to unfold that outlook — and has harnessed social media to take action. A digital camera hangs within the truck the place she passes out meals, capturing moments which are uploaded to her TikTookay and Instagram accounts (5.3 million and 373,000 followers) that she hopes are altering the narrative on homelessness. It can be a fund-raising system for an operation that runs solely on donations, Ms. Raines mentioned.
“People have grown to love some of the people that we support and take care of,” Ms. Raines mentioned. “It’s become a little internet family.”
Beauty 2 the Streetz turned a registered nonprofit in 2019. Sydney Granados, the group’s government coordinator, estimates that it feeds about 1,000 folks every week, totally on Skid Row, an space of Downtown Los Angeles. Some days, Ms. Raines brings McDonald’s burgers. Other days it’s pizza from Costco. Sometimes a chef in a meals truck cooks enchiladas, hen tortilla soup or vegan cauliflower steaks. Ms. Raines and her volunteers additionally hand out toiletries — toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo — and so they even shade hair.
“Homelessness is one of those very visual problems,” mentioned Ben Henwood, director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research on the University of Southern California. “We see it all over the place, but actually seeing people for who they are, the humanity part, we often miss. These kinds of efforts that allow people to connect at a very individual level and be seen, I think, are hugely important for self-esteem.”
Wherever she goes, Ms. Raines lifts moods, with some banter and light-weight teasing. In March, when a person she calls Big T confirmed up sporting a too-tight jacket, Ms. Raines joked that he was going to “squeeze out like a biscuit.” She’s typically seen sporting fluffy yellow sandals and lengthy rainbow socks, and has discovered American Sign Language to speak with the deaf “kings and queens.”
“She’s very magnetic,” Ms. Granados mentioned. “She’s enjoyable, funny, bright — people love to be around her.”
In 2021, Ms. Raines was named Act Daily News’s Hero of the Year, incomes a $100,000 grant for her group. The Beauty 2 the Streetz Patreon web page pulls in about $6,000 every month, and the group additionally solicits donations on Venmo and Cash App. In current months, these donations have allowed her to develop to San Diego, Las Vegas and Long Beach, Calif.
‘My journey started with pain’
Ms. Raines’s path to creating Beauty 2 the Streetz began in 1990, when she herself was with out a residence. Her son Demetrius J. Stephens Jr. spent lots of time at her grandmother’s residence, in Compton, Calif. When Demetrius was 2 years outdated, she mentioned, he by chance swallowed an antipsychotic capsule meant for considered one of her uncles and ultimately died consequently. Ms. Raines was 23.
Ms. Raines “became a terror to this world,” she mentioned. “My journey started with pain, death, feeling like, ‘why am I alive?’”
She had extra kids, moved into an condo in Inglewood, Calif., with the assistance of a housing voucher, and bought her first job as an grownup working as a 411 operator. She started bodybuilding and have become a health teacher earlier than transitioning right into a profession as a medical biller.
Still, Ms. Raines mentioned, suicidal ideas shadowed her. “I endured a lot of freaking pain that people don’t see,” she mentioned. “That’s what drives this caboose.”
After a heart-to-heart dialog in 2017 together with her twin sister, who implored her to search out larger emotional stability, Ms. Raines accompanied a good friend to volunteer for Pauly’s Project, a nonprofit serving homeless folks in Los Angeles. She developed a rapport with a few of the girls she met, who stored complimenting her hair and make-up. So at some point, Ms. Raines returned to a Pauly’s Project occasion with magnificence merchandise from Sephora and a bucket of sizzling water. Ms. Raines dyed the ladies’s hair and handed out make-up kits.
She ultimately attracted a following so massive that she went out on her personal. She set herself up on Skid Row with a small staff of volunteers, administering what she calls “spiritual C.P.R.”
“Everybody wants to feel clean,” Ms. Raines mentioned. “Everybody wants to feel good about themselves. I have a queen right now, we did her hair purple a couple weeks ago. I’ve never seen her smile so big. Her hair, all the purple has washed out, but her smile is still the same, because of the lasting effects of all the praise she got when her hair was colored. Those things don’t wash off.”
Part of the attraction of her social media movies is the recurring solid of characters her followers have come to know — and Ms. Raines’s relationship with them. One girl, who had been pregnant in a earlier video, just lately confirmed as much as the truck together with her new child.
“She had the baby!” Ms. Raines screamed ecstatically, turning to the digital camera. “She had the baby!”
The effort, although, hasn’t been straightforward and has taken a toll. Her rising celeb has been notably robust on her kids, she mentioned. “When they were growing up, I was a woman with a short temper, partying, never had money for them to do anything,” she mentioned. “The world is calling me an angel, and they don’t see me as an angel.”
Ms. Raines thinks typically of the son she buried. She is especially moved by the kids she serves who come to her with out dad and mom.
“I think they help me as much as I help them.”
Source: www.nytimes.com