VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

Former ‘Contributor’ vendor helps haul furniture for newly housed folks

BY HANNAH HERNER

When The Contributor got an influx of donated furniture that needed to be picked up, former vendor Mario Martinez was commissioned to help. He’s picked up a number of loads of furniture from his old neighborhoods, Donelson and Hermitage, and brought them in to newly housed Contributor vendors.

An unexpected bonus is that he gets to catch up with old customers. Many of those he picked up furniture from recognized him from when he sold The Contributor.

“I enjoy it because it's going around in a full circle. So I'm running into my customers again, and I feel good to see them and talk to them. They can see where I'm at and what I've done,” he says.

Mario is one of the early success stories of the paper, transitioning from living in a barn to living in his own home and leveraging his connections built through selling the paper to create his own business, Bear Lawn Care. The business is named in memory of his dog Bear, a big fluffy white dog who used to sell papers with him.

“I'm surprised that people will come approach me and say, ‘Are you Mario?’ I say 'yes ma'am,' And they'll say 'I knew that was you!' You know, I always thought that nobody really recognized me or knew me, because everybody knew Bear. And so but now I'm finding out that they do know who I am also,” Martinez says.

He uses the trailer typically reserved for his lawn mower to transport the furniture. Timing was good to help The Contributor this fall, as lawn mowing season was slowing down, he says.

It’s a full circle moment for Martinez, who experienced homelessness for years before moving into his own home five years ago. He remembers that when he moved in, neighbors and friends swooped in to outfit his apartment.

“I want to do what I'm doing to help others out by picking up furniture and delivering it and doing my part, because I've had people do that for me,” he says.