Acts of charity abound in Bay State
Published: September 10, 2005
Bay State Good Samaritans are outdoing one another with their acts of generosity as they prepare to help homeless Katrina victims, including those arriving at Otis Air National Guard Base in Bourne.
Tim Corcoran, founder of Corcoran Brokerage in Milton, has offered one of his four-bedroom properties to an undetermined family, rent-free and fully furnished.
“The gravity of the degree of homelessness and the sheer numbers made it so hard to look around at the empty rooms of that house and then hear of people that are without one,” Corcoran said.
“Hopefully it will be a family that would appreciate being in Boston’s surrounding area, someone that’s willing to settle in here,” Corcoran added.”
Meanwhile, Jerry Quinn, owner of The Kells restaurant in Allston, is becoming something of an evacuee himself, vacating his Brighton home so a family of 10 from New Orleans, including two adopted kids, can move in.
“I like helping out and I like helping people,” Quinn said. “I had already donated to the Red Cross but I saw this opportunity and thought I would do something more personable.”
It took Quinn three days of wading through paperwork and making phone calls before he found the family, through a Web site.
“I was determined to get hold of a family I didn’t know, not picking and choosing, but I appreciated the fact that they had two adopted kids,” Corcoran said. “Today she told me she had found her brother in a shelter and I said `Why not? Bring him along’ .”
Quinn has taken up a collection at his business, and he’s also providing food, clothing and even a job for the father of the family.
Also pitching in to help Katrina’s homeless, Catholic Charities of Boston has made commitments to provide long-term shelter for evacuees in vacant buildings throughout the Archdiocese of Boston.
“We have to identify the buildings and make sure they are ready, then we will try to solicit volunteers from the archdiocese community,” said spokesman the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir.
Hehir said parishes here and nationwide will pass the collection basket Sunday, as they did over the Labor Day weekend.
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