Column: ‘I’m going to do everything I can to help them land on their feet.’ How one Chicagoan is helping a family navigate this sanctuary city

Brad Zibung, a Chicago real estate agent, was heading east on the North Avenue bus to see a play at the Steppenwolf Theatre. It was November. The play was “Sanctuary City,” Martyna Majok’s story about the uncertain future of two undocumented teenagers brought to the United States as children.

Zibung noticed a family — mom, dad and two young kids — carrying a lot of items and dressed in clothes that wouldn’t stand up to Chicago’s cold. They got off the bus at the same stop as Zibung and he watched them struggle to carry a large vinyl bag filled with, it turned out, canned goods. He offered to help. The family accepted.

They were headed to the Red Line station and Zibung walked with them. Together they carried the bag down a long flight of steps to the train. The family only spoke Spanish, so Zibung and the father made conversation by texting each other’s phones and hitting Google translate while they waited for a train.

The family, named Torres, was from Venezuela, Zibung learned. They were heading south to 95th Street and then west to a shelter.

“Turns out it was the same day of the Northwestern-Iowa game at Wrigley,” Zibung said, “so the train rolls up and it’s packed with drunk fans.”

A Red Line rite of passage.

The family of four squeezed in a train car. Zibung assured them the crowds would thin out after the downtown stops and asked them to text him when they arrived at the shelter. They obliged.

The texts continued through the holidays. The family was staying in Dolton where the parents were finding odd jobs. Zibung visited with winter clothes that his sister picked out for them during her holiday shopping. Zibung took them grocery shopping and Target shopping.

What began as a bit of kismet — guy heading to a play called “Sanctuary City” gets off the bus with a family trying to navigate life in an actual sanctuary city — was budding into a friendship. They went to the Billy Goat. They swung by the Church’s Chicken near the United Center one day and Zibung watched the dad give some of his cash to a woman standing outside asking for help.

On New Year's Eve, Zibung heard from the family that they needed a place to stay that evening. He helped them find and check into a hotel and then he came home and started a GoFundMe.

“I’m going to do everything I can to help them land on their feet,” he wrote. “If any friends, friends of friends, or just plain kind souls could also contribute, I would appreciate your generosity greatly.”

He shared it on his social channels. His wife, sports reporter Sarah Spain, shared it on hers. The GoFundMe quickly reached the $10,000 mark. Zibung started fielding texts with offers to donate food and coats and toys.

“Every time I hit refresh there’s a new donation,” Zibung said. “It’s overwhelming.”

A few days after the GoFundMe went up, Zibung co-signed a lease for an apartment in Forest Park for the Torres family. He’ll use the donated money to pay the rent and utilities. Eventually, when the family can set up a bank account or Venmo accounts, he’ll figure out a way to transfer the money over to them to manage.

“In the grand scheme, this is all pretty insignificant,” Zibung said, “but it’s not insignificant to this family.”

And it’s not insignificant as an invitation, especially as we start a new year, to reflect on what we want to tune into as we go through the world.

Zibung tuned into a family who needed help. He tuned into his own ability to help. He tuned into a longing, among folks he knows and folks he doesn’t, to amplify that help.

“Brad for us is a friend with a big heart who gives to us without expecting anything in return,” Juan Torres, the father, texted me. “Truly for us he is a blessing from God, an angel who God sent.”

It’s also worth tuning into, I think, the courage it takes for a family in the Torres’ situation, to trust and accept that help. To say, Sure, carry our food down the stairs. Sure, text my phone. Sure, come to my new address. Sure, pile us into your car. Sure, put your name on my lease. To trust a stranger with all you have and love and to assume and hope for goodness. That’s huge and it’s beautiful.

It can also change the world, if we let it. Hope and goodness are contagious. Kindness is contagious. Help is contagious.

But first we have to tune into them.

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