Monk reaches out to prostitutes

From NPR:

On the surface, Main Street in Chattanooga, Tenn., looks nice. There’s a newly developed arts district with galleries, upscale restaurants, a packed breakfast joint called the Bluegrass Grill, even houses that have been certified as environmentally friendly. But if you stray from these newly renovated blocks, there’s a different side to Chattanooga’s Main Street.

“In Chattanooga, we have this underbelly,” Brother Ron Fender says. “You can walk down Main Street, and you don’t know that just over there, there’s prostitutes — or just over there is a camp where people sleep in the woods at night.”

Brother Ron, as he likes to be called, is a monk. He’s a member of the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory, a Christian community that’s part of the Episcopal Church. Brother Ron helps to run the Chattanooga Community Kitchen, a day center that provides food, medical care and case management to the homeless. Tammy Clark is homeless and volunteers there every day.