Steineman operates St. Patrick Soup Kitchen, serving six meals a week, and runs the St. Joseph House, a low income homeless and cold shelter.
He played professional basketball in Europe and South America. While playing in Venezuela, Steineman asked a local pastor to show him something that tourists don’t see. He was taken to a hillside at 9:30 at night where he saw dozens of people living in cardboard shacks, with no running water or electricity.
“I said to myself, ‘When I get done playing basketball, I am going to do something positive for the human race,’” Steineman recalled.
On returning to the U.S., he went to Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine area, where he ran a soup kitchen and homeless shelter for 10 years. In 1994, he moved back to Troy and opened St. Patrick Soup Kitchen. The kitchen also delivers hundreds of meals in Miami County on Christmas, a project Steineman attributed to the efforts of Deb Grant of Troy.
“I am just one of the gems in the community of Troy,” Steineman said. “There are many people like me doing wonderful things in the community. It is just my part in making the Troy community a better place to be.”
Mengos called Steineman “a top inspiring person” in her life. “That is true for many people who meet and work with him. He is where people go when they can’t find anyone to help them. He has taught me to care for needy strangers with wisdom but without fear,” Mengos said.
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