Rock Hill pastor gets nationwide honor for caring for people in need

The Baptist Courier

In 1970, there was just about nowhere in Rock Hill where kids without a roof could turn. Those from crumbling families had no place.

Bob Porterfield

So a youngish Baptist preacher, Bob Porterfield, and two of his buddies, Jim Freeman and Gene Norris, decided to make one.

Almost 40 years and more than 6,000 children later, the Children’s Attention Home remains in Rock Hill, working the wonders that change lives. It has a campus and school. Hundreds of youngsters have found homes, families. Other homes followed around the state.

All because of this place that started with almost no staff, no money, but plenty of love.

Now, even the politicians have noticed. Porterfield’s work was recognized recently with the prestigious Angels in Adoption award, presented each year to people around the country who help the neediest kids out there find solace, hope, safety – and, eventually, families.

Only the best and brightest in America – about 1,500 in the past decade – are recognized by members of Congress. U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint described Porterfield, the sole winner from South Carolina, as a “tireless advocate for children and a hero for the people of Rock Hill.”

DeMint is right. Bob Porterfield is one of those guys – a hero out there, quietly, whether in a tool belt or preacher’s robe.

At 77, Porterfield still is finding hope where it doesn’t seem like there is any. He’s on the boards of the Attention Home, the York County Cancer Association and the York Baptist Association, as well as a member of Rock Hill’s affordable housing screening committee.

He was the minister for Winthrop’s Baptist Student Union for decades, retired, then took over Second Baptist Church. He is still there, building.

“You do what you can to help the people who need it most,” Porterfield said. “The thing I am most proud of is how the Attention Home has grown to meet greater needs. More children are served. That’s all that matters.”

The children have always been all that mattered to Porterfield, said Libby Sweatt-Lambert, the Attention Home’s executive director. Not notoriety, not accolades, not recognition.

Porterfield didn’t send DeMint’s office a letter asking for an award. It was Sweatt-Lambert, a former winner of the award herself, who nominated Porterfield for his lifetime of dedication to the Attention Home and its children.

“Rev. Bob Porterfield is one of the truly selfless among us – the men who, with deeds, make life better for those without chances,” Sweatt-Lambert said. “This place has helped so many children get a second chance at life. Bob Porterfield was right there at the beginning, and still is, making that happen. He’s a role model for any of us who want to take care of others around us.”

For years, Porterfield worked with the Baptist Builders, fixing up the homes of people whose roofs had caved in, or whose walls were rotten. That the people in those houses were almost always broke, most times black, and were most times strangers beforehand, mattered not one bit to Bob Porterfield with the tool belt on.

One of those houses belonged to a great lady named Robbie Land. “The Mayor of Baker Street” she was called before she died last year, on her home block in Rock Hill’s Sunset Park neighborhood. A woman so generous to all, just like Porterfield, that when her house burned, people showed up to fix it. One of those men was Bob Porterfield. One day when Porterfield was walking up to the house, Land said out loud for all to hear: “Look! Here comes Jesus.”

Bob Porterfield said he was just doing what Jesus wanted him to do. Like when he would be at the grocery store, the gas station, over the years so many times – countless – and some adult with a smile and a future and hope would come up to him and say, “I was a kid at the Children’s Attention Home. You helped save me.”

“No, I’m not Jesus,” Porterfield said that day to Robbie Land. But now, Porterfield is one of the few recognized Angels in Adoption. Pretty close to Jesus, who was a carpenter – just like Porterfield.

– Dys is a columnist for the Rock Hill Herald. Reprinted with permission.