For more than three decades, Beth Biggs has built a career around getting people back on their feet. As director of Family Promise of Baldwin County, she now spends her days connecting homeless working families with children to churches, volunteers and, eventually, homes of their own.
Biggs works out of the program’s Day Center in Summerdale, which functions as the hub of the operation. Families sometimes stay at the center, but it mainly serves as a place to keep their belongings and get support during the day while they sleep overnight in participating churches.
“I love people,” Biggs said. “I love helping not just the people we serve in Family Promise but serving our volunteers, giving them the opportunity to live out their faith mission of serving others less fortunate. It’s kind of like doing mission work right here in your own hometown, in your own home church. So that’s been a real blessing.”
From a hotel room to a house
Rodney Merrell knows the program from the inside. He lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he, his wife and their six children ended up living in a hotel and then a campground until Biggs helped the family find a home.
“She helps you regain your respect for yourself, treats you just like she would her own family, you know, makes you feel like a person again,” Merrell said. “I gratefully appreciate all the hard work that she put forth to help our family out.”
Merrell said that before his family fell on hard times, he and his wife had been donors to the program. He now volunteers with the organization and serves on its board.
A career built on case work
Biggs’ background spans social work, group home management and case management, and she holds leadership roles with several homeless coalitions. In 2020 she took part in a discussion on homelessness with Ben Carson, then the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development.
“I love helping people move from that point of crisis to a point of stability, and I’ll be honest with you, it’s really about the kids,” she said.
The instinct showed up early. At 16, while working at a camp for children with special needs, Biggs brought home a five-year-old boy named Jimmy who was about to be returned to the foster system. She asked her parents whether the family could keep him, and they adopted him. Her brother is now in his 40s and lives in Foley with their parents.
How the program stays funded
Family Promise of Baldwin County is a United Way agency and depends on contributions and fundraisers in addition to the grants Biggs writes herself. The volunteer network of local congregations supplies the overnight shelter space that makes the model work.
Biggs, a grandmother, said her faith and her family are what keep her going, and that her husband volunteers alongside her.
“I’m not gonna not help. It’s who I am. It’s what I love to do,” she said. “I have a wonderful life partner in my spouse who supports me in everything I do. He’s a wonderful volunteer. He enjoys helping people and we make a team of it. I can’t just sit at home and watch TV.”