Carrie Blanton with her six-month-old son, Mathew, have a new vehicle filled with groceries, thanks to the generosity of Jim Ferreira background, and Susan Henry, of Warwick. The Providence Journal Gretchen Ertl

WESTERLY — Yesterday, James Ferreira gave a car to a stranger — a single mother with a 9-year-old boy and a baby with Down syndrome.

He didn’t think twice about it. The mother, suddenly poor, needed help, he said.

“I grew up in a Portuguese neighborhood where we took care of everybody. That’s just what you do,” said Ferreira, a professional photographer from Warwick.

Ferreira handed over the keys to his 1998 Jeep Cherokee to Carrie Blanton, after reading about her in The Sunday Journal.

The 39-year-old waitress quit her job in February to take care of her baby, Mathew, who was born with wispy hair, Down syndrome and two holes in his heart.

For months, Carrie –– living on food stamps and money from the government –– struggled to make her baby strong enough for surgery in Boston. A surgeon fixed his heart in June, but her car was repossessed in July.

In the following weeks, she pushed Mathew and his stroller through the streets of Westerly, to the grocery store, the housing authority office and to other appointments.

“She needs the car more than I do,” said Ferreira, who bought a motorcycle last year. His girlfriend, Susan Henry, recently got a car, too.

“I’m going to cry,” said Blanton, who took the keys and drove the dark green Jeep up and down her dead-end street.

Ferreira and Henry weren’t done. Before they drove the Jeep to Westerly, they filled it with groceries, a plastic baseball bat for Carrie’s older son, Tyler, and a bouquet of flowers for Blanton.

Ferreira and Henry were among more than 30 readers who responded to the Sunday Journal story with offers of money, gift cards, clothes, food and toys.

“I hope that many people will come forward to help her. She is so young and has gone through more than she should have to at her age,” wrote one reader.

Elaine Army, a Westerly resident who teaches in Connecticut, said she could not send money but offered to baby-sit on the weekends. Blanton, she said, “has certainly faced more than her fair share of challenges.”

Raised by a troubled mother, Blanton was placed in a foster home at 14. A year later, she was working two jobs and living alone.

Two other readers also offered cars to Blanton, so she could drive Mathew to his pediatrician and cardiologist in Narragansett and Providence.

Another reader stuffed an envelope in her mailbox. The woman, who identified herself only as Jennifer, said she and her friends want to help.

But a handful of readers criticized Blanton, especially for smoking. How could she smoke when the family needs money for food, they asked.

Yesterday, Blanton –– who does not smoke around Tyler or the baby –– said she is trying to quit. She quit once for five years, she said.

A few readers also criticized Blanton for her problems with men. Her two marriages failed and Mathew’s father is now in Virginia, working as a sushi chef. He has promised to send Blanton money.

But Ferreira yesterday said everyone makes mistakes.

Blanton, he said, is trying to turn her life around and needs help. “My heart goes out to her,” he said. “She’s trying so hard.”

The 1998 Jeep, he said, has a cracked windshield but new tires.

“Although this isn’t a happy ending, I’m hoping that it will at least put her in a somewhat better situation and she will be able to get Mathew to and from the doctors,” Ferreira said

“If everyone just helped one person in need, think what a world we would have,” added Henry.

After she fell behind on her car payments, Blanton offered to make partial payments on her 2006 Nissan Sentra. But the company wanted the full amount she owed, nearly $20,000, she said.

For protection, Blanton hung a vial with the ashes of her mother and grandparents from the rear view mirror of her Sentra. Each night, she parked the nose of her car against a tree. Then her downstairs neighbor blocked it with her own car, an old Chevy.

It didn’t stop the repo man, who took the Sentra one July morning.

“I’m relieved, and happy, and grateful,” said Blanton about yesterday’s gifts. Before dark, she hung the pendant containing the ashes of her mother and grandparents from the mirror of her new car.

pdavis@projo.com