Creating Intergenerational Wealth: The David Anderson Story

CREATING INTERGENERATIONAL WEALTH IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR

Anita Dinkins says there is no telling how long it will take her daughter to stop referring to her new home as “Pop Pop’s house.”

Dinkins’ late father, David W. Anderson, bought the rowhouse on Clifton Avenue in the West Baltimore Penn-North Community with the help of the Center for Urban Families nearly a decade ago, and it became the place the patriarch gathered his family for Sunday dinners, holidays, and celebrations.

When he died in April 2021, Anderson left the home as a stepping stone for his children and grandchild to get ahead in life. Now, Dinkins’ 25-year-old daughter— DeAsia, Anderson’s eldest grandchild—will move into the home with her children. There, the young mother will find an affordable and secure place to live while she works to shore up her own future, just as Anderson had wished.

“That is the best part for him: He was able to help his family,” Dinkins said of her father. “That was all that mattered to him.”

When Anderson came to CFUF, he could never have predicted all the ways his life would change, his daughter said. He graduated from STRIVE® in 2006

looking for a fresh start, not long after completing drug and alcohol treatment. He was able to then land a job with a pest control company and, after a few years, Anderson decided to strike out on his own.

He founded DWA Pest Service, LLC, and with the help of the CFUF team, he passed the licensing and certification exams. He would say the Center was “like a family that doesn’t give up on you.” (He was also fond of telling stories about how Ms. Forrest and Ms. Pitchford made flashcards to help him study, and stopped to quiz him randomly in the hallways of the Center.)

Soon after passing the exams, Anderson’s company was providing pest control to dozens of homes and businesses each month, including fellow CFUF members Marcus and Bobbi Collick. Another one of his clients was CFUF itself, where Facilities Manager Lloyd Wright said other than being a “good guy, a really good guy,” Anderson did a great job and was always teaching and learning.

“He showed me some things I didn’t know,” Wright said. “I truly miss him right now. I saw David go through his journey to become an entrepreneur. His story is one of the highlights of what we do here to promote the potential of people who come into the facility.”

Anderson added homeowner to his list of accomplishments with the help of CFUF’s homebuying assistance program. Once homeless, Anderson was amazed by the life he built by grabbing hold every time CFUF extended an opportunity, Dinkins said.

“They made all his dreams come true, every last one of his dreams,” Dinkins said. “They were a cut above. He couldn’t have gone to a better program.”

The Center’s support continued through the end of his life. When Anderson was diagnosed with a rare stomach cancer and given six months to live, Joe Jones reached out to his network to ensure Anderson’s affairs were in order and all he worked so hard to create for his family would translate into intergenerational wealth.

Jones called Jamar R. Brown to ask for help with Anderson’s estate planning. A Partner in the litigation group at Rosenberg Martin Greenberg, LLP, Brown said Jones is a mentor and a friend, and whenever he reaches out, “you know he is doing something to impact someone’s life for the better, and I wanted to be a part of that.”

Brown said he was deeply moved by Anderson’s story and for help assisting him, he tapped Brett F. Baldino, an Associate in his firm who specializes in estate planning. The attorneys happily offered to represent Anderson pro bono and had the opportunity to speak with him on multiple occasions to learn more about him, his family, and the legacy he intended to leave them. Baldino then prepared an advance directive and a will for Anderson to help ensure that his wishes would be honored upon his passing.

“He could not have been more appreciative of us for the work we had done,” Brown said. “He was just a great personality, really funny. I was in stitches for most of the time. What I came away with most was the pride he had to be able to leave something to his family. That was critically important to him."

“He was a man who had clearly worked hard to overcome a lot to get where he was.”

Anderson, 62, died about two weeks after their final visit.

Monica Mitchell, Vice President of Social Impact and Sustainability for Wells Fargo Bank, said Anderson “had a magnetic personality” and the two instantly clicked. Wells Fargo provided the down payment for his home as part of its NeighborhoodLIFT initiative, and she got to know Anderson as a result.

“I count it as a privilege and an honor to know David,” she said. “He was the perfect embodiment of someone I look up to.

“David’s life has not been a storybook by any description, but through the collaboration of a committed and interconnected partner like CFUF and programs like Wells Fargo’s, you have the perfect demonstration of what it means to give people a hand up and not a handout.”

Mitchell said Anderson also went on to provide pest control for the charter school for girls that she founded in Northeast Baltimore, the Lillie May Carroll Jackson School. Anderson took great pride in the work he did in service of the students, and he became part of the school family.

“There are so many lessons to be learned from David’s life,” Mitchell said.

Dinkins said she hopes to continue what her father started in his pest control company, although she says, “I am not into bugs. I am not into rodents. I’m going to do it because that is what my Dad wanted. I want to fulfill the rest of his dream.”

She says for her father, however, the company was always much more than bugs and rodents. It was his chance to connect with others and help improve their quality of life—and as the owner of the business, he could do so on his terms.

“He didn’t want to work for nobody else,” Dinkins said.

Anderson grew up in Baltimore City and attended Forest Park High School before enlisting in the Army. Dinkins said her father was eventually kicked out of the service and spent years on a destructive path before committing to turning his life around.

For much of her early childhood, Dinkins said her father was incarcerated. She visited him as often as she could, and the two cemented a bond that was profound. While in prison, he made her a simple wooden jewelry box with a drawer lined in blue fabric, her favorite color. She’s kept it for almost 40 years.

She says she was “always a Daddy’s girl”—even if her father affectionately called her by the nickname “Boy.” He had a single tattoo: her name on his arm.

She says he would be thrilled to know his family’s legacy will be continued in the home he provided for them.

“I know he is excited, saying, ‘I left them something,’” Dinkins said. “That’s all he kept thinking about, him leaving us stuff. I just didn’t want him to leave me.” IN