Hundreds gathered Monday night to say goodbye to Sandtown leader Allan Tibbels, the man credited for revitalizing the neighborhood for more than 20 years and who brought together people from all walks of life.
The celebration of Mr. Tibbels' life was highlighted through song, prayer and laughter, as many of his partners, family and adopted family took to the lectern at New Shiloh Baptist Church to share their reflections of a man who spent part of his life in a wheelchair but never wavered in his mission to build a community.
Mr. Tibbels, a quadriplegic, died June 3 at Mercy Medical Center at the age of 55.
A slideshow of Mr. Tibbels' life — showing scenes of him relaxing with his two daughters in various suburbs as well as working with the family members he met and adopted in the Sandtown neighborhood — opened up the program. His was a life, said the Rev. Thurman Williams of New Song Community Church, that should inspire mourners to move forward.
Mr. Williams told mourners that Mr. Tibbels' life, and death, was a call to action.
"On every block on the streets of our neighborhood, people are missing our brother Allan," Mr. Williams said. "We have come here to have a funeral for Allan. We have not come tonight to have a funeral for the mission that Allan gave his life to."
In 1986, Mr. Tibbels rehabbed a burned-out shell of a Sandtown home and moved in with his wife and two daughters. He was a founder and elder in the Presbyterian Church in America's New Song Community Church at 1601 N. Calhoun St. He also founded the neighborhood's Habitat for Humanity program.
The ministry grew to include New Song Academy grade school, New Song Community Learning Center, a family health center, job assistance program and an arts program, but the homebuilding program was always its most visible venture.
The program targeted a 15-square-block area in West Baltimore that had about 350 abandoned homes in the late 1980s. The Sandtown community now boasts 278 homeowner-occupied homes, and more are planned.
John Perkins, the man whose Mississippi neighborhood program inspired Mr. Tibbels' Sandtown work, spoke of how Mr. Tibbels furthered a dream of a holistic Christian community.
"I can hear Allan saying, 'We are more John Perkins than John Perkins," Mr. Perkins said. "It was the best compliment I ever heard."
Other speaks described how Mr. Tibbels embodied the message of building community through relocation, reconciliation and redistribution — the idea that you live among the people that you want to help, break down barriers and share the fruits of the community's labor.
The Rev. Mark Gornik, who moved to Baltimore with Mr. Tibbels and his wife, Susan, to begin the New Song Ministries mission, spoke of Mr. Tibbels' trademark words of encouragement, "Keep at it," in urging that the community continue to move forward. He said his friend was never limited in what he could do. He said he used to hope that one day, Mr. Tibbels could be more like others and be able to walk.
"Now, I see the reverse," Gornik said. "We need to be more like Allan."
At the end of the service, Habitat for Humanity members held hammers to form a tunnel to salute Mr. Tibbels' casket as it was wheeled out of the church.
Mr. Tibbels' wife said she was able to plan a service that reflected her husband, who enjoyed rock bands and religion.
"I'm glad I was able to give my husband the kind of homegoing service he would have loved," she said. "Where you had a U2 song and a Pentecostal prayer all in the same place."