The driving rain and ice pellets didn’t deter Charm City Cee from setting up his grill at the corner of Fayette and Front streets this past Sunday.

A stream of cold and grateful recipients, many homeless and hungry, came from all directions to get a free hot dog or burger and maybe a blanket or some clothes.

“You wouldn’t happen to have mustard would you?” one man wearing sopping wet gloves asked as he bobbled a paper plate with a hotdog and roll on it.

“No problem, right over there,” Cee said, pointing him to the condiments.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the man said. “This is so great.”

Behind him, men and a few women stood  in line, some peeking through a bag of donations protected from the rain by a plastic cover.

Asked what they hoped to find, several said, “toiletries.”

Mom Made Sure Everyone had Enough to Eat

Cee, a local hip-hop and R&B artist, started feeding the homeless one Sunday a month not long after his mother, Dale Griffin, died in 2013.

“My mom always made sure everyone had enough to eat and a place to stay,” he says of Griffin, who raised him in the Murphy Homes housing projects. The food giveaway is officially called “Let’s Feed the City: Doing it for Dale Griffin.”

Cee, who lives in White Marsh now, didn’t set out to provide for Baltimore’s homeless population; it just happened.

He was driving downtown one day when a man pulled him over and asked him to roll down his window.

“I thought, I’m not gonna give him no money because he’ll use it for drugs,” Cee recalls. “But it was so cold, and he’s standing there in a t-shirt, and so I gave him my coat.”

“”You’re really gonna give me your coat?’ the man asked me,” Cee says, recalling his shocked reaction.

“I said yes. Here, take it.”

Cee didn’t have to think twice. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. And that simple but powerful moment got him thinking.

Before long, Cee was collecting coats (his car is full of donations pretty much year round) and worked out a plan for distributing them – along with whatever food he could get together.

He decided to do it at St. Vincent De Paul of Baltimore, the church at the end of the Jones Falls Expressway. “A lot homeless congregate there anyway,” he says, “it’s convenient.”

Cee has permission to do his give-away at St.Vincent now but acknowledges that, at first he just showed up on the sidewalk.

“In the beginning I didn’t ask anybody whether I could do it. I came with some food from a restaurant. Then, I decide that a cookout would be more of an event. So I just showed up with a grill and started cooking for people.”

Feeding Hundreds, Including Families

Now Cee and about 30 or so volunteers cook and distribute donations one Sunday a month. (He’s hoping soon to move to every two weeks.) A rotating group of nonprofits bring books and shoes and other giveaways from time to time. Among them last Sunday were members of Baltimore Bloc and Word on the Street Baltimore.

Most Sundays, a few hundred people who need food and clothes show up to accept donations.

“Not everyone is homeless,” Cee says. “Some people are just hungry and need a few things.”

He says that “Let’s Feed the City” attracts a surprising number of families.

“When I first started, there was this family who was living out of a car with a four-month-old baby and they were feeding the baby formula made with cold water, ” he recalls.

“I help people who are dealing with bad situations. We got the bottles warmed up,” he says, showing particularly strong feelings for the children in struggling families.

“A 12- year- old shouldn’t be worried about eating.”

Compassion and No Judging

But Cee says he does this work without a lot of judgement.

“I don’t ask a lot of questions about how they got where they are,” he says, acknowledging that giving away too many freebies could have a negative effect, “could handicap some people.”

He sees generosity, up to a point, as being helpful.

“It goes both ways. Giving encourages people to do better for themselves,” he says.

He tells the s tory of  “Mr. Mike,” a homeless man who helped Cee on giveaway days.

“He said to me, ‘One day I’m going to be the one bringing you donations,’” Cee recalls.

“And I thought, alright Mr. Mike. I took him at his word.”

And a few weeks ago, Mr. Mike got off the street.

“I believe he has an apartment. He’s on his feet. And he came out and brought me donations,” Cee says. “Sometimes I think people need a little encouragement to do better.”

“The Mayor do What she do”

Cee’s work with the homeless has raised his profile beyond the local hip-hop community.

His events are regularly promoted by grassroots organizations like Baltimore Bloc and Cee just participated in a panel on hip hop artists for social change in Baltimore.

But Cee doesn’t consider himself to be any kind of activist and has no particular connections or relationship with City Hall or city agencies.

He has no idea about the city’s homeless count, he says, but thinks the number is pretty large.

“The mayor do what the mayor do. This isn’t about the mayor. This is about helping out the city,” he says.  “It’s a celebration of my mother every month — and we help people who need it.”

Trying to Stay Warm

As the freezing rain continued Sunday and Baltimore prepared for another 20- degree night, more cars drove up to drop off donations.

The homeless who braved the icy sidewalks, combed through piles of food, clothing and bedding giveaways, sizing up how each item would help them stay warm and dry – or at least not freeze.

Each car that pulled up with fresh items attracted interest – in particular, when word that one donor had a down sleeping bag.

“I’ll take it!” a man said quickly.

“It’s only a child’s size,” the donor clarified.

“That’s alright,” he said.

“I’ll squeeze into it.”
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– The next Feed the City is Sunday, March 29, at 1 p.m. at the corner of Fayette and Front streets. Cee can be reached at 443-525-6031.