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ST. LOUIS — Calvin Motley had his roof fixed two days after the tornado hit. It would have been one day, but some of the materials he bought were wrong and he had to go back to Home Depot.

Motley is handy. Always has been. He’s fixed cars for a living. Gutted homes. Fixed roofs.

Those skills have proven useful since the May 16 tornado that cut a devastating path across north ӣ����Ƶ. Motley lives near the eye of the storm, on Lee Street in the Penrose neighborhood. After he fixed his house, he started helping neighbors, mostly on his street, but a few streets over, too. Sometimes he’d just help them clean up their yard of roofing materials and trees; other times he’d repair a roof and attach a weatherhead so they could get electricity turned back on.

“My neighbor had a tree in his yard,” Motley remembers. “It was my tree.” So, he helped him clean it up and then started to work on the house.

Have ladder, will travel, should be his motto. He’s got one propped up against his house, two more in the front hallway, and another in the bathroom, with drills and other tools spread out in his living room and dining room, which have become his construction office.

Motley wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Calvin’s an angel on earth,” says Mark Timmerman.

Timmerman, an attorney, met Motley through an app called that connects handymen to people who need work on their homes. Timmerman and his wife are having a baby and needed a room remodeled into a nursery. Motley was actually at their house in south ӣ����Ƶ County when the tornado hit his house.

The two men became friends, and when Motley — who says he will be celebrating his 60th birthday next week but also confesses that he lies about his age — started working to fix up north city houses on his own, with the help of his nephew, Jason, Timmerman had an idea:

“I wanted him to get paid while he was doing it,” Timmerman said.

And why not? One of the fears expressed to me in the aftermath of the tornado by people who live on the north side is that outside forces will come in and force people out of their homes, and actually take money out of the community.

Motley wants to see the opposite happen. He wants the tornado to lead to the investment in the city’s north side that has been lagging forever.

“It’s not just about keeping money in the neighborhood,” Motley said. “It’s about bringing money into the neighborhood.”

Timmerman put his social media and networking skills to work and started calling around to friends in the legal community. He started a for Motley called STL Rebuild, and posted a TikTok video of Motley talking about his efforts. So far, it’s raised . Most of that money has been committed to five repair jobs in the neighborhood.

Motley grew up in Springfield, Illinois, and came to ӣ����Ƶ in 1982 to follow his two sisters, who were both students at Washington University. One of those sisters, Mildred Motley, is a former president of the , the oldest association for Black lawyers west of the Mississippi River.

Motley moved to the north side in part with a plan to buy and fix up homes, eventually selling or renting them out to fund his retirement.

“I like the north side,” Motley said. “I like the old buildings.”

Motley hasn’t always had the biggest heart for helping others, he admits. He was a bit rough around the edges as a young man. Later, as an adult, there was a time when he owned an auto mechanic shop on Union Boulevard. A homeless man named Freddy would regularly wander by the shop. Motley didn’t want to be bothered by him, so he would actually pay him to stay away on some days. One day, a man in his shop suggested a different approach: “Why don’t you give him a chance?”

Motley mulled it over. As he tells me the story sitting in his easy chair in his living room, he mimics the good angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, feeding his brain with conflicting thoughts. Motley chose the good angel. He gave Freddy a task, cleaning the grease-and-oil-stained floor on his shop. He scraped it clean over a period of days and Motley hired him. Some time later, Freddy talked about wanting a house; he had picked one out in the neighborhood that needed a little fixing. Motley helped him fix it up. Freddy still lives there.

These days, the good angel on Motley’s shoulder is doing all the talking. Most of the folks whose homes he’s repairing don’t have homeowners insurance. “They’ve got no place else to go,” Motley says. “I can fix them.”

Editor's note: This story corrects the name of the device that protects incoming electrical wiring from rain and snow. It is called a weatherhead.