Donations of warm clothes for the homeless, compassion and support for victims of disaster, acts of heroism -- these were some of the finest moments for Rhode Islanders to shine in 2003.

08:24 AM EST on Wednesday, December 31, 2003

BY JENNIFER LEVITZ
Journal Staff Writer

Three things in human life are important, said the writer Henry James. "The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind."

This was a year in which Rhode Island's goodwill glowed. It wasn't only the charity after The Station fire, though certainly that is a fine place to begin because hardship brought out the best -- people like Robert Sevigny.

Sevigny is 42, a lifelong Rhode Islander who lives in Warwick, where he likes to chop wood and work on his house and his cars. He has a Patriots flag hanging out front. He fixes x-ray equipment, a job that takes him to various medical centers.

In February, he stopped at Rhode Island Hospital, in Providence, where a floor was filled with burn patients from the nightclub fire. Sevigny brought magazines. He told a nurse he wished to see a burn patient who had no family in Rhode Island -- someone who could use company.

He found himself at the bedside of 32-year-old William Long.

Long had been the tour manager for Trip, a warmup band at The Station on the night of Feb. 20. He was from Las Vegas, and his family lived in upstate New York. Long was groggy from medicine, stiff and sore from burns.

Long, Sevigny realized, needed a friend. "He was out here all alone."

And that began Sevigny's almost daily visits to Long. Long was in the hospital for more than a month. Sevigny brought movies, rock 'n' roll magazines, and more visitors, including his wife, Nancy Sevigny, and his children, who started calling Long "Uncle Bill."

"He brought me Dunkin' Donuts coffee every single morning," Long recalled last week, of Robert Sevigny. "He would just check on me, even if he could only be there for five minutes."

Journal photo / Kris Craig A FRIEND IN NEED: Bob Sevigny, right, of Warwick, made regular visits to Bill Long, left, formerly of Las Vegas, in Rhode Island Hospital after Long, a stranger with no local relatives, was injured in The Station fire.

When Long's parents and three brothers traveled to Rhode Island to visit the hospital, the Sevignys had the Longs over for a spread of seafood and homemade meatballs.

Bob Sevigny said he kept returning to the hospital because, "just the joy on his face, he really seemed to appreciate it."

"I wasn't a doctor, I didn't have any miracle drug, but I did have something I could offer," he said. "I just made a bit of a sacrifice, which wasn't much at all."

Sevigny said Long brought him something. He "brought happiness, more of the reason to appreciate what I have as far as my health, and the people around me. It just allowed me to be myself, really."

The relationship and the hospital stay transformed Long, made him think about how he wanted to live his life. He tried to move back to Las Vegas, but his old lifestyle didn't feel right to him anymore. He wanted a place where "home, family and friendships" are important. So he uprooted his life and moved to Rhode Island.

He lived with the Sevignys until he found a job, working days at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Conn. He got his own place and set about making it cozy, like the Sevignys' house. Bob and Nancy Sevigny came over and put up a wallpaper trim in Long's bedroom; they hung his art on the walls; they brought firewood, which Bob had chopped.

Long and Sevigny have become the best of friends. Bob Sevigny said he has successfully converted Long to New England sports. Red Sox games. Patriots parties at the Sevignys, where Bob Sevigny makes pizza and invites the neighborhood. On Christmas Eve, Long was headed to a family gathering at Sevigny's grandmother's house.

"It hasn't stopped," Long said. "Their family has become a part of my life, and I like who I am now. I've never been so happy."

He said the Sevignys, and their unconditional friendship, have given him a new perspective.

"It's changed my values, one hundred percent," Long said. "I've always been known as a nice guy, but I was very selfish and self-centered. I was always nice to other people, but I came first, I was always chasing a career, or trying to shake hands with the right people. Now, my whole life has done a 180."

Bob Sevigny said simply that he had treated Long how he would want to be treated. He said of his new friend, Bill Long, "He's a brother."

MELINDA DARBY -- whose husband, Matt Darby, died in the fire -- still thinks fondly about what St. Philip parish, in Smithfield, did for her after the fire.

Inside the parish center on a cold night in April, 25 tables were set up on the basketball court. Vincent Mattera, a parishioner, donned a white apron splotched with red sauce, from cooking 1,600 meatballs, 140 pounds of pasta.

The church was holding a fundraiser dinner for two families affected by the fire -- among them, Melinda Darby.

The parishioners at St. Philip did not know her. This wasn't her church. But they knew, from news reports, that she was suddenly a single mother of her and Matt's two daughters, Jessica, who was 10, and Sarah, who was born 31 days after the fire.

"As a parent of two children and four grandchildren, it hits home," Mattera recalled last week. You thank God for your own good fortunes, he said, and then you do something to help.

Melinda Darby arrived at the church fundraiser with her father, her mother, and her daughters -- Jessica, and baby Sarah, asleep in a bassinet. Hundreds of people where there. "I was overwhelmed," she recalled.

As the Darbys ate, people they had never met stopped by. One woman gave Melinda hand-carved prayer beads. Others told her they had lost their husbands, too. They offered their phone numbers, should Melinda need to talk.

The church raised some $6,000 that night; the pastor matched it.

These days, Darby is rebuilding her life. On Wednesday, Sarah took five steps across the living-room floor. Darby said her family has made it through the past nine months partly because of the kindness of people like those at St. Philip.

"Those people were unbelievable," she said, "You know you're not alone when a church full of strangers could actually do this."

THE BEST of human nature also emerged in other ways this year, such as during the deep freeze of winter, when the word traveled that the needy were without warm clothes and shelter.

Cars lined up outside Travelers Aid, in downtown Providence, to deliver thick parkas, some with tags still on. So many coats came in that the agency put a halt to the donations.

One man walked into the state Council of Churches office and wrote a personal check for $500. A tiny congregation took in $600 in one special Sunday collection.

"When good people hear that people are at risk of freezing to death, they want to do something . . . . And I believe most people are good people," the Rev. John Holt, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, said at the time.

And how about the three Cranston businessmen who rewarded their office manager, Laure Paul, by flying in her 21-year-old son home for Thanksgiving. He was with the Air Force, stationed in South Korea. Wayne Damato, Joel Cooper, and Jim Claffey -- partners at Benefits Unlimited in Cranston -- had been looking for a way to show Paul what she meant to them.

Decent people -- they are at the Wheeler School, where the student body was not about to let their milkman retire without a celebration, so they surrounded John McLaughlin in a surprise assembly in May.

For 31 years, he had been part of the maintenance staff; he'd been the kind face that handed out their milk. The students told him what they liked best about him -- mostly that he always said hello, and asked about their families. He told them he had just been doing his job.

DRAMATIC ACTS of selflessness also marked this year.

Cory Arno, 26, of Central Falls, saved a life on his way to the bank on Nov. 19. He was on Borden Avenue, in Johnston, when he saw a panicked woman with her arms crossed, her hands on her neck.

Maryann Marino had run out to the street from her home, choking on a piece of macaroni. Several cars had already driven by, and she feared she was about to pass out. Arno stopped.

Christine Provencal jumped into the gray, snowy Providence River in her nursing scrubs on Dec. 9 to save a life. Provencal, 40, was on her way home from her 12-hour shift as a nurse at Women & Infants Hospital, in Providence, when a flagger from a construction crew on an exit off Route 195 stopped her, yelling for help.

Marie Lamour had lost control of her Jeep Cherokee and it was sinking in the river. Lamour was on top of her car, yelling that she couldn't swim. Provencal jumped in, grabbed Lamour, and pulled her toward the river bank, where others had gathered to help.

Provencal told the Journal earlier this month: "How can you stand there and watch someone drown? You can't."

And Chris Choiniere, 39, can't get over what the people in Scituate did -- and are still doing -- for her family.

Her husband is John Choiniere, a firefighter who is best known for teaching young people in town to play soccer. He's a coach in Scituate's Youth Soccer Association. This year, he was the one who needed support. His kidneys were failing him.

Some 500 people showed up for a fundraiser in Vasa Park in Foster in May. They brought salads, desserts, a cake depicting soccer players, the perfect red bike for the raffle. The Choiniere family was presented with a check for "several thousand dollars," Chris Choiniere recalled last week.

"But it didn't end there," she said.

On Nov. 10, Chris and John Choiniere entered Rhode Island Hospital for kidney transplant surgery. Chris gave her husband a gift, one of her own kidneys.

When they went home from the hospital, the Choinieres found that they would not need to cook for weeks. A friend in Scituate had by e-mail worked out a schedule where people in town would take turns delivering meals to the Choiniere household.

"The people in Scituate," Chris Choiniere said. "It's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable."