The idea of community comes from the Bible where God speaks to us of loving and taking responsibility for our brothers and sisters around us.
1 Corinthians 1:10 “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.”
A heartwarming incident of community coming together and helping out was witnessed at Sudbury, Mass, where Good Samaritans helped repair a single mother’s home in need of renovation.
Jane Cunningham’s Sudbury house was badly needing repairs, “The entire roof was shot,” she said, there was also mold and a big problem with the family room. “We basically had to board that off and couldn’t use it because a piece of the ceiling had fallen down and in with that came a giant squirrels’ nest, nuts and all.”
Cunningham and her three children were not safe in the house, but she was unable to repair it, but thank God for a friend who started a GoFundMe page for her. Sudbury resident Dave Fenton, and Chief Operating Officer of Suffolk Construction Boston was moved when he saw it.
“It kind of just moved me. So I dug into it a little more and figured out that we should be helping,” he said. “I knew we had to jump in and help right away.” He used his business contacts and trade partners and found roofers to help out.
“I knew there was more to do so I reached out to some other folks and some interior people, some demolition folks that we work with so we got inside and took care of the mold issue, took care of the drywall, a little bit of the electrical work and kind of got the place secured up for the wintertime,” Fenton said.
“Everything they did was life-changing,” Cunningham said. The rooms that were once filled with mold and squirrels were now changed with a new roof, walls, and insulation so that the family could live in it and be safe.
The struggling mom has now found a new hope which she thought never existed, “I’m just blown away by the kindness and it really just changes our whole outlook on life and it changes the trajectory of our life as well,” she said.
What’s astonishing is that the entire work was done for free and now Fenton said they plan to return in the spring and fix the landscaping and paint the exterior.