Hope To Tell: The Chip Lady

Glenda Hoffman turns her daily commute into a ministry

by Anne Ryder

Years ago, Glenda Hoffman, in her heels and skirt, passed panhandlers every day on her way to her job Downtown at Indiana Bell. As a young wife and mother of three, working to make ends meet, her reaction was unsympathetic.

“I would see them and think, Get a job,” Hoffman recalls. “Sometimes I would even share that sentiment with them.”

It’s the only thing she’d share at the time, convinced that if she gave them money, it would go for alcohol, not food.

As a Christian, Hoffman, 46, felt some guilt sitting through Sunday sermons about prejudices, the poor and forming snap judgments.

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