Bel Air Bail Bondsman Helps Treat Children To Christmas

BEL AIR, MD — Christmas came early for dozens of children in Bel Air this week.

Freedom Fighters Bail Bonds owner Danny Diamond and his nonprofit Agape Projects treated 208 children to a holiday shopping spree Monday night at the Toys R Us in Bel Air.

This was the seventh year that Diamond has helped put together the event, and he said at the end of the day, he was holding — or wearing — a receipt for $10,400.

Originally, Diamond started the toy run out of his own pocket.

He said he has come a long way since 2001, when he was homeless on the streets of Baltimore, addicted to drugs.

"I had a heart attack at 23, flipped cars, had been in gunfights and I survived it all, amazingly, while some people didn't," Diamond told Bel Air Patch. "I felt like I had a reason for being here, and I devote every moment of my life to giving back."

He said he worked a 9-to-5 job and eventually had the opportunity to open a bail bond business several years ago. There, Diamond said he was keenly aware there were people in need, particularly children.

"I went into yoga and came out one day and said, 'What can I do when parents are strung out on drugs, and the children are left with nothing?' So I came up with the idea of a toy run. I said, 'I'm just going to pay $2,500 every Christmas and take 50 kids shopping,'" Diamond recalls.

He put a flyer up on Facebook and reached out to social workers in the jail to see if there were families who could use help for the holidays.

For six years, he did not solicit donations.

"But the community caught on and said, 'I want to chip in,'" he said.

This year, he started a nonprofit to bring together all the various causes he's dedicated to so others can help as well. The Agape Projects does everything from delivering donations to those in need, like the victims of an apartment fire in Rosedale, to making mission trips to Haiti.

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The nonprofit is about "lifting each other up as a community," Diamond said.

"Agape is actually an old Greek word that means two things," he said. "One is God's love for us and two — the one I like to use — is love as a verb, it's love in action."

Said Diamond: "There's a lot of lost people that think it's impossible to find a place in this world. Between doing the charity work and my hobby of traveling, I try to show people what's possible if you stay clean and do what's right."

Photos courtesy of Danny Diamond and Agape Projects.