By: Dalton M. Bright
On May 7, 2017, Ashley Wilson and her son Curt were driving the bends of County Road 222 in a 2004 GMC. Around 6 p.m, about a mile west of Good Hope, Alabama, the mother and son neared Van’s Sporting Goods.
As they turned the bend near the store, their vehicle was struck head-on by a 2008 Ford truck. Curt was flown by helicopter to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham where he later died.
The red Ford truck was driven by Bradford Meeks. Meeks had a blood alcohol concentration of .263, over three times the legal limit. Meeks was sentenced to 12 years in prison on May 12, 2020.
That day, Wilson stood in the Cullman County Courthouse and said: “I feel sorry for Bradford Meeks, not for the reasons you might think — because he will never get the chance to know my son, Curtis James Wilson. Curtis had a way to put a smile on your face no matter what was going on in your life. Curtis always put others before himself. Curtis would have instantly become your best friend the moment you met him. Curtis had a way to find your strengths and bring them out to better this world,” Wilson said.
In her statement, Wilson recounted the events of May 7, 2017. “My last memories of Curtis haunt me daily: memories of seeing my precious son brutally crushed in a truck that only moments before we were laughing in, knowing you are watching your son die helplessly in front of you. I cringe when people call the tragic events that killed my son an accident. It was no accident. Meeks knew the risk of his action.”
On the southeast end of 11th street in Cullman, Alabama, traffic ambles by a building no larger than a McDonald’s. The exterior of the building appears like the rest in this town: constructed of brick and white vinyl and roofed with standard black shingles. At the intersection of Third Avenue, where the ground seems to arch up is where the building stands alongside oak trees.
Inside, through a set of double doors, Ashley Wilson stands at the base of a set of stairs with her hands by her sides. The sunlight bounces off the cement driveway outside and shines through the windows with unmatched confidence. The light bounces off Wilson’s tee shirt and her blonde ringlets of hair. Illuminated on her gray tee shirt is a logo that reads: “Curt’s Closet.”
Wooden racks stand beside her in the middle of a large room. They appear to be handmade, but not in a way that looks shoddy or cheap. Planks meet up in an A, forming the frame that holds coats and shirts and sweaters and blouses. Underneath the hanging garments is a shelf with space for folded pants and an assortment of shoes. Beneath that is white linoleum flooring.
At the head of the room there are nearly 100 pairs of jeans folded and stacked atop shelves mounted to the walls. Above them, hung on the wall higher than anything, is a portrait of Curt stretched onto canvas. His image sits overlooking the entire room in a black and white print.
Wilson walks up the stairs and down a blue hallway. The hallway has the same linoleum flooring tiles as the shop room. The door to one room is open and washing machines spin inside.
“After Curt was killed, I was sitting on my back porch, crying out to God, wondering why I was here and Curt wasn’t,” Wilson said with a tremble in her throat. “Some
people say I’m crazy, but I vividly saw a sign and it said ‘Curt’s Closet.’ I knew immediately what it was.”
Three months after her son Curt was killed, Wilson applied for Curt’s Closet to become a 501(c)(3) organization. Section 501(c)(3) is a portion of the United States Internal Revenue Code and a tax category for nonprofit organizations. Organizations that meet 501(c)(3) requirements are exempt from federal income tax.
The earliest stages of Curt's Closet took place in Wilson’s home. “In March of 2018 is when we opened our doors to the public in a church over on Saint Joseph’s Street,” Wilson said. “In a very tiny church, I think it was like 900 square feet.”
Curt’s Closet operated in the small church for three years before moving to the new location on Third Avenue in March 2021. The new location is nearly double the size of the last. She says the size of the shop isn’t the only thing that has doubled since moving.
“Our numbers have pretty much doubled or more. We constantly have donations being dropped off. We are constantly sorting, we are constantly washing and we minister to the families that come in,” Wilson says.
She glances into the organization’s sorting room before heading into her office. “If we don’t have what they are needing here, we can refer them to other organizations and find the help that they need,” Wilson says.
Wilson takes a seat at her wooden desk. “We see 250 children a month, which is how we are able to see a little over 2,000 a year. We see one family per hour. We didn’t want a child to come in and be in here with someone they know from school. I don’t want them to be uncomfortable. I want them to come and feel welcome and proud to be here.”
A few of the reviews left on the Curt’s Closet Facebook page refer to Wilson as an angel, a blessing beyond measure, and an answer to prayer. One person left a review calling Wilson the most giving lady that she had ever met.
Dystiney Goodson is a Cullman local who has been to Curt’s Closet for assistance. “Ashley Wilson has helped me and my children tremendously. She is so kind-hearted and cares. She’s honestly one of the greatest people and deserves praise. She has done something great in her son's name, and I just know he is smiling down on her,” Goodson said.
Jessie Land is a longtime friend of Wilson. “I met Ashley Wilson when she was 19 years old and she began working at Cullman Regional Medical Center. She was a young, single mother working hard to provide for her and her baby. It did not take long for me to realize she was special, and we became instant friends,” Land said.
Over the course of the years, life took the two down different paths. They saw each other less, but Land says they could share a hug and catch up in no time.
After Curt’s funeral, Land met up with Wilson to pay her respects. “I expected for her to be filled with anger, but instead she was the same sweet, compassionate, kind and humble woman that I had always known,” Land said.
“Yes, she was broken, her heart longing for her son and tears flowing, but she held tightly onto her faith, trusting our Lord, even though she nor anyone could understand why Curt had to die. From that day, I knew she would use Curt’s death to honor God. She would not let him die in vain,” Land said.
Land remembers when Wilson told her about the plans she had for Curt’s Closet. “She told me about the vision God had given her. She remembered being that single mother working hard and trying her very best to provide for her three boys, never caring if her needs were met or not,” Land said.
“She wanted every child in Cullman to be able to go to school with nice, clean clothes that fit well and they were proud to wear. She wanted to see them smile, just like her own Curt did every single day of his life. Ashley took a terrible, heart-crushing experience in her life and turned it into an opportunity to bless children and honor her son’s life,” Land said.
“She and I have talked about and prayed together often for the man that killed her son to give his life to Jesus. She continues to pray for him on a daily basis. I do not know any other woman that would have that kind of compassion,” Land said.
Tears begin to well in Wilson’s eyes. “I believe this is something Curt would have done if he had been given the chance,” she says. “We could be out and about and he would see a homeless person and he’d reach over and he’d grab my arm and he’d say: ‘How are we gonna help them mom? Let’s go get them something to eat; do you have five dollars to give them?’ He just wanted to give and help everyone,” Wilson says.
While operations at Curt’s Closet have doubled in the past year, Wilson says the move to this new location was not as much of a hassle as it seemed. “It was absolutely easy because this community is amazing. We had the baseball team, we had church groups. We had an army here and we done it, seriously, within a few hours,” Wilson says, her Southern accent becoming a whistle against her teeth as she grins.
“We had four storage units where we kept out-of-season stuff that we did not have room for because our original location was so tiny. We moved the church and the four storage units in probably four or five hours,” she says.
Wilson is a Cullman native. She doesn’t hold back the pride and respect she has for the community. She says the small-town feeling that Cullman possesses is special. “It’s just a big family. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I love Cullman.”
Wilson says the people of Cullman went out of their way to make her feel comfortable following the 2017 crash. “People reached out to me that I have never spoken to in my life, and they touched me,” she says, her voice increasing in volume.
“They did not know me or Curt, but they wanted to help, even if it was just a text to lift me up. That means a lot. I think in bigger places, in my opinion, you don’t have that closeness where you feel like a family to everyone,” Wilson says.
Wilson is quick to praise the people of Cullman, but the mutual love between Curt Wilson and the community of Cullman is one that remains central to the mission of Curt’s Closet. Painted on the sign out front and across the sidedoor of the Sprinter van that picks up donations around town is the phrase: “giving back to the community that loved him.”
In 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cary Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at Auburn University conducted a survey. The survey polled 67 Alabama and Georgia nonprofits between May and July of 2020. Out of those polled, 57 percent of nonprofit organizations answered that their services were operating at a “severely reduced capacity.”
While the COVID pandemic resulted in the cancellation of their annual fundraiser, Wilson says the impacts of the pandemic affected Curt’s Closet little. “We were closed for those first four or five weeks at the very beginning. We were like everyone else, didn’t know what was going on or what to do,” says Wilson.
“We still had families that were calling in and needing our assistance. I would meet them up here and we’d stay away from each other, wear masks and everything, but it did not affect our numbers for donations, families we saw or even our monetary donations,” she says. She places a pause longer than the ones before it. “As a small non-profit, we were kind of worried, but I guess we shouldn't fear — that’s not of God,” Wilson says, interlocking her fingers like two combs. “It was amazing. We did not see drops in any of our numbers.”
Wilson’s Christian faith is primary in her life and also steers her actions toward families at Curt’s Closet. “I don’t mean to sound like I am boasting or anything, but I love to show them Christ through me. The love and the support that they need right now,” Wilson says.
Whitley Davis is a foster parent in Cullman who adopted two children. “Ashley has helped my kiddos who came to me with nothing. She helped in a loving and caring way without making them feel judged,” Davis said.
“Ashley is a picture of what a Godly person is. You can see the love and kindness in every single smile. She has constantly been encouraging to me when foster care had me down. Her smile literally lights up a room. We are so thankful for Curt’s Closet and the impact Ashley has made on our lives,” Davis said.
Wilson glances down at her wrist, adjusts her watch band and looks back up. “Sometimes I feel guilty because I feel like I am getting more of a blessing than the families that come in,” she says. “It has been a lifesaver for me.”
Wilson takes a deep sigh. “There are still some days that I wake up and I want to stay under the covers, you know,” she says. “I miss Curt tremendously but knowing that I get to come up here and love on someone else’s child and make them smile: that’s my motivation. Some of them come from such sad stories. I love loving on them and making them feel worthy,” Wilson says, smiling.
The next event on the organization’s calendar is the Clothed in Cullman fundraiser. “We have one big fundraiser a year. We have a luncheon, a silent auction and we usually have a guest speaker,” Wilson says.
The event is scheduled on May 7, the five-year anniversary of the wreck that killed Curt Wilson. “We do it the Saturday before Mother’s Day, so everyone brings out their mother, has lunch with them and learns more about Curt’s Closet. The event is a way to raise money while having fun with the community,” she says.
This past year, Wilson and the team at Curt’s Closet started holding an event they call Curt’s Christmas. “Originally, during Christmas, we would provide Christmas gifts for five or six families,” says Wilson. “This year we were able to reach 300.”
Her lips uptick in a smile as she begins to talk about her plans to provide 500 families with Christmas gifts this year.
“We still had families calling up until Christmas. They thought they could wait and have enough money, but at the last moment they were searching for some help to provide their children with Christmas. I did not realize the need,” Wilson says. “I want to be able to reach more children because of the need.”
She rises from her desk and begins to make her way back into the main showroom. She walks by a wall with 40 wooden boards hanging on it. All cut to different sizes, the boards have the names of donors engraved into them. She passes through the same blue-walled, linoleum-floored hallway and back down the stairs.
“We don’t care where you live. If someone is in need, we will help them,” Wilson says. She stands in between the racks of clothing, holding three wrapped cookies in her hand that she grabbed from the kitchen area.
The icing on the cookies are decorated with the organization’s logo. An image of a baseball takes the place of the “o” in “closet,” an allusion to Curt’s love for the sport. Above Wilson’s head, the black and white portrait of Curt hangs silent and smiling.
Wilson scans the room full of donated clothing. “Reaching the children that need our assistance and making sure that there is no child that is going to wake up on Christmas and not have gifts under the tree, I think that, right now, is my main goal,” she says with a smile similar to the one on the canvas.
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