When Justin Braswell was 15, a neighbor approached his mother, Michelle.
“She said, ‘I didn’t know you gave out care packages,” she recalls. The neighbor told a confused Michelle that she saw Justin give his friend a bag of food, which explains why the family’s food supply was diminishing so quickly.
“If his friends were hungry, he would feed them, but we gotta eat too,” Michelle said with a laugh.
Justin was quick to help out anyone who needed it, and it wasn’t limited to food. If someone needed a place to stay, he’d invite them to crash at his house — even if he wasn’t the one paying the bills.
On Oct. 22, 2017, at the age of 25, Justin was shot and killed as he rounded a corner on foot in the Fairhill section of Philadelphia.
Michelle has kept up Justin’s pattern of generosity by feeding one needy family per month and six families every Thanksgiving in her son’s honor.
“Until God sees fit to take me from this earth, I’m going to continue his legacy of giving food and helping people,” Michelle said.
Justin was born Dec. 31, 1991 in Philadelphia. He has two siblings, a sister who is now 23 and a brother who is now 17.
Michelle wanted Justin to attend a charter high school rather than West Philly High, but that didn’t work out. He ended up getting involved with the wrong crowd, but as he matured, he started to find his path.
He finished high school and attended Lincoln Tech for engineering, but it was love that really turned his life around.
Justin was on house arrest and was taking care of his cousin’s four kids when he saw a woman named Mariam across the street.
She noticed him, too. She sat on the porch and watched Justin and thought he had to be a good man the way he played with the children.
“One day he took off his shirt and she saw his nice brown skin,” Michelle said.
He called over to her and asked her name, and she said, “Just call me neighbor.”
As they got to know each other better, her father, who is an imam, was protective of his Muslim daughter. He gave Justin a hard time, Michelle said, and he even sent her away to Egypt for a year.
Love found a way, though. Justin converted to Islam and eventually they married, with her family’s blessing.
“That is a beautiful love story,” Michelle said. “I thank God that my son did marry someone, even though he was 25, who loved him and looked out for him because a lot of us don’t know what that type of love is.”
They intended on having kids, but they wanted to make sure they could afford to do so. Justin, who worked construction and at a pizzeria, put the idea on the back burner until they were more established. He talked about setting up his own business rehabbing houses.
But his life was cut short before the rest of his dreams could come true. An arrest was made 11 days after Justin’s murder, and Michelle, who was living in Buffalo, NY, moved back to Philadelphia so she could attend every court hearing.
And now she plans to stay in Philly so she can follow Justin’s example and continue helping people in her son’s memory. Every month, Michelle, her husband and her sister go shopping for household food essentials like milk, eggs, veggies, cereal, beans, cooking oil, chicken and fish and they bring it to a family who needs it. Each Thanksgiving they plan to put together food baskets that include turkey.
“I saw Justin transition through each phase in his life, from troubled teens to him slowly maturing and getting himself together,” Michelle said. “And even in that process of his struggles, he was still able to help other people.”
To learn more about Michelle’s efforts to feed needy families or to make a donation, visit her GoFundMe page.
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