At age 95, Reynoldsburg resident and Mid-Ohio Food Collective customer David Smith credits his life’s successes to two things: an unwavering faith that calls him to serve without judgment and a willingness to listen.
“People say ‘you’re smart.’ Oh no, I’m not smart. I learned to shut up and listen!” David joked. “If I see a person in a negative situation, I don’t inundate them with judgements. If they were not in that situation, they could be a great person. I try to make the bad into the good. I was born that way.”
The former prison chaplain and Army veteran has been an eyewitness to the Great Depression, the home front of the Korean War, and the prison riots of the early 1970s. At every step, he looked for ways to help and understand others and kept faith that they would be there to help him, too.
David has shopped for the past year or so at the Mid-Ohio Market at HEART. Operated by HEART (Helping Eastside and Reynoldsburg Thrive), an MOFC partner agency, the market provides a no-cost grocery store experience and access to fresh produce.
Originally from Long Island, David grew up in the 1930s. His family never went hungry, but life was far from easy.
“I was in high school before I ever had a new shirt. My father would go to the grocery store and buy the spotted vegetables and the meat that wasn’t that fresh,” David said. “In the Great Depression, either you made do, or you didn’t eat.”
As a boy, he developed the faith he’d keep for the rest of his life. David’s father was a devout Christian, and religion was a foundational part of his childhood. He decided he wanted to give back, and he enlisted with the U.S. Army as a young man. While his first stint in the military was largely uneventful, his second was not.
David had a week left on his enlistment in 1950 when the Korean War broke out. He stayed in the Army and, for the next several years, trained recruits at Fort Dix in New Jersey. By the end of the war, David—then a sergeant—had put hundreds of men through basic training and taught dozens how to maneuver tanks in the field.
“I trained men to keep them from getting killed. I went through basic training 14 times. Eventually, I went to the Pentagon and said to the major ‘get me out of here, I’m going insane!’” David said, laughing.
Joking aside, he knew his work was important. When he left the Army, his company commander credited him for saving the lives of thousands of soldiers who’d made it home. After the war, he started looking for a way to get involved with what he called the “hands-on part of religion.” When he learned the state was looking for prison chaplains, he got his chance.
In his new career, David took care of inmates throughout their lives. It’s a prison chaplain’s job to “marry them and bury them,” he said. Having military experience helped him deal with tough people, and his strong sense of faith carried him through his hardest days on the job.
When inmates in several U.S. prisons protested over poor living conditions in the early 1970s and took over facilities by force, chaplains were often called on to negotiate. David volunteered for that duty despite knowing that people could have been hurt or killed inside. He recalled going into a facility while the inmates were in control.
“I wanted to go in there, and they’d look at me like I was crazy. But I wasn’t wired to be afraid,” David said. “The Bible is very clear: ‘And lo, I am with you always.’ As long as I have breath in my nostrils, God’s going to protect me.”
In the following decades, David moved to Cincinnati and then to central Ohio. Since putting down roots in Reynoldsburg, he’s looked for ways to stay active in the community and stretch his limited income as a senior. The Mid-Ohio Market at HEART has helped with both.
The market volunteers have a hunger and thirst to be helpful, he said, and they recognize him when he visits. In their welcoming smiles, David sees neighbors who share his desire to do God’s work with genuineness, humility, and grace.
“The Lord opened the way, and it was beautiful—it was the pantry,” David said. “There are 66 books in the Bible. I’ve read them all. You know what I’ve learned? What it is to be generous, to be kind, and to be willing to serve. There are people doing that right there. The pantry is the place you go to meet your natural and spiritual needs. As the Bible says, ‘The table now is spread. Come and dine.’”
