At our office, Paul was the kind of guy who blended into the background — quiet, polite, and predictable. Every day at lunch, he unwrapped the same plain sandwich. We joked about it sometimes, and he’d just smile that small, knowing smile of his.

When he handed in his resignation, I offered to help him clear out his desk. That’s when I found the stack of children’s drawings: crooked hearts, stick figures, and crayon-scrawled notes that read, “Thank you, Mr. Paul.” One picture showed a man passing out sandwiches to a line of kids.

Paul never talked about having children. Curiosity finally got the best of me, and when I asked him, he simply said,
“Go to the West End Library around 6 p.m. You’ll understand.”

A few days later, I went.

There he was, standing quietly by the side entrance with a cooler and a stack of brown paper bags. About fifteen kids — some homeless, some just overlooked — waited patiently as he handed each of them a sandwich and a few gentle words.

“Most of them don’t get dinner,” he told me. “I just want to make sure they get at least one meal.”....