Even before Nashville’s swift and stunning growth began to gentrify working-class and impoverished neighborhoods, Father Strobel had already become our civic conscience. What he understood is the difference between charity and community — a difference founded in kinship, in recognizing that we all fall down, that sometimes it takes another hand to pull us up again. One cold night he looked out the rectory window and saw people sitting in cars in the church parking lot, trying to keep warm. Image Charles Strobel Credit... Room in The Inn, Nashville“I knew once they came through the doors that night, they would come back the next night and the night after that,” he often said. “I also knew I wanted them to come back.”

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Persons: You’ve, Charles Strobel, Father Strobel, ”, Ann Patchett, “, Strobel, gadfly, Nashville “ Organizations: Holy Name Catholic Church Locations: Nashville, East Nashville, The Inn