The mask can’t hide Levern Burrows’s smile partly because he smiles with his whole face. And that’s the smile that greets many when they enter House of Mercy. It’s a smile born out of a life-long desire to help others.
Levern credits his mother for that compassion.
“She loved people,” Levern said. “She was spiritual and strict, but not in a bad way.”
Even when Levern made his way through Charlotte High School, Rochester Institute of Technology and Monroe Community College, he always felt compelled to give back.
“I was always asking for a better world for the less fortunate,” Levern says.
Like so many Rochesterians, Levern found a career at Kodak.. He worked there handling production, safety and maintenance issues from 1979 to 2004.
“I didn’t even take many vacation days because I had a big desire to succeed and to help others,” Levern said.
Finding House of Mercy was, to Levern, a blessing.
“Words cannot describe my appreciation,” he said.
At House of Mercy, Levern found people in need and others like him, who saw in the poor, the elderly, the abused, the same thing he saw: pain. Just like him, the group at House of Mercy runs towards that pain instead of away from it. They engaged in radical compassion in that they met someone’s suffering with unconditional love and mercy.
For Levern, that compassion wasn’t learned; it was nurtured, by his mother whose love of people lives on through her son and her son’s smile.