Posted by Bob Schecter on Jun 05, 2019
Random Acts of Kindness is quickly helping expand the influence of the Rotary Club of Framingham! Recently, the club engaged in two separate acts to help solve an Iraqi immigrant mother's transportation problem, and to help repair housing for an elderly couple.
 
Needed Home Repairs
 
Framingham’s Jim Goodreau and his wife, Christine Goodreau, were in dire need of a helping hand, and quickly. Jim is recovering from cardiac arrest— Christine gave him CPR until the EMTs arrived—and couldn’t risk the exertion needed to repair the un-lockable front door or the damaged storm door in their Landseer Avenue home. Moreover, the dishwasher wouldn’t work. Unfortunately, the couple couldn’t pay for the needed repairs because Christine had just lost her job.
So, with limited income now—one daughter is still in high school, the other is at college—the Goodreau family badly needed the assistance that the Framingham club has supplied. The club and the Goodreaus expressed their gratitude for the assistance of Framingham-based Belcher’s Appliance, Inc. and Tri State Appliance Installation Inc. in Lincoln, RI in the acquisition and installation of the new dishwasher.
 
A Car Means Survival
 
A Framingham couple came here from Iraq some years ago. He’d served in the U.S. military and she was a veterinarian. Eventually the couple encountered marital issues and separated. She continued her study of English so she could pass the veterinary license test in Massachusetts, and got a job as a veterinary technician. Then, disaster struck.
 
Feeling ill one day, she left work early and ended up totaling her car. (No other vehicle was involved, and the cause was likely a neurological episode she suffered). She got a ticket and paid it, but the Registry of Motor Vehicles didn’t record the payment, so the RMV computer automatically revoked her license and then cited her for driving without one! A lawyer she could barely afford helped prove she’d paid the original citation. But now, the insurance company refuses to pay her claim because, they say incorrectly, that she was driving without a license.
 
With no car, and having exhausted all other transportation possibilities, she had her plight discovered by Don Pachuta, pastor of the Community of St. Luke, a volunteer at the Pearl Street Café, which mom and the kids had begun to visit. He’d heard, through a Framingham Rotarian, about the club’s Random Acts of Kindness Award, and applied for one on behalf of the family. The result: The Framingham club provided the down-payment of $4,500 to lease a Toyota Rav 4, allowing an affordable monthly payment and security for the family.
 
Framingham's Random Acts of Kindness is made by an anonymous gift of a Framingham Rotarian.
 
 
To learn more, contact Framingham Rotarian Bob Schecter by clicking here.