When Navy veteran Judith McElven, a 78-year-old woman with Parkinson's disease living in Coventry, Rhode Island, lost her live-in boyfriend of more than a decade, she was left with all of his belongings to deal with. After giving her some time to grieve, her neighbor, Diane McDonnell-Trant, stopped by to offer her condolences and realized McElven needed help. “I could see she was overwhelmed,” McDonnell-Trant recalls, “I said, 'Do you need some help?' and she said, 'Yes.’"
McElven’s apartment was cluttered and her furniture was no longer safe to use, so McDonnell-Trant put out a call on social media and got to work making some phone calls. One person who answered the call was Lisa Rattenni-Carley, a volunteer at the Christian Hill Community Church, who just happened to hear from Linda Allcock, a local Realtor with some surplus furniture to donate.
Now the ladies just needed to clear out the old items and find someone to deliver the new furniture to McElven’s second-story apartment. Another social media post led to resident Mario Branco donating money to have items removed from the apartment and then Brian Crum, owner of 'Crum Relocation', volunteered his moving crew to bring in the new furniture. Crum even set McElven up with a new TV. Comfy in her newly appointed home, McElven thanked everyone involved: “I’m so thankful for everybody helping me. Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart."
Source: TURN TO 10