There are times, however, when those little bits of kindness add up to more than anyone could have thought.

 

This is one of those times:

 

Paul and Maureen Choudhury live in a pleasant 35-year-old house in Coquitlam and, like all homes of this vintage, the windows could do with some upgrading. With winter approaching and a home renovation tax credit waiting, the couple decided the $10,000 investment was worth it to make their home warmer and more energy efficient.

They set aside the cash, called Sears Home Central and placed an order for 21 windows and patio doors, and thought nothing more about it.

 

That is, until Oct. 29, when Maureen took a tumble down the stairs.

 

Such a fall might sideline most people for just a few days but for the outgoing mother of two young girls, it was a hint that something was wrong.  And when Paul and Maureen found out what was wrong, a drafty house was the least of their worries, so they put the window replacement job on hold.

 

Darcie Rooney, a customer service representative for Vinyltek, which supplies and installs windows, first read the message from Sears cancelling the job, then passed it on to her boss with a comment that he take a look.  Bob Lawrence, Vinyltek’s president, read it through as she’d requested, saw the name Choudhury, and felt a jolt of shock.

“Oh man, I know these people,” he recalls thinking.

 

Below the email from Sears sales rep Doug Gibson to put the job on hold was the original note from Paul Choudhury explaining the reason for the delay.  His wife battled breast cancer seven years ago and the disease had returned, Choudhury wrote, adding that he would reconfirm the job after the immediacy of the crisis had receded.

Lawrence’s heart went out to the Choudhury family. His own two daughters are roughly the same age as theirs and attend the same schools, Eagle Ridge elementary and Scott Creek middle. The girls used to play together when the family ate at Burger King years ago. Lawrence knows Maureen well.

 

She’s somebody special, he says. “She can light up a room.”

 

Like Rooney, he wanted to do something for the family. But what?

 

More email messages began to circulate and, like a stone thrown into a still pool, generated ripples that eventually became a wave.

 

“Everybody was just ‘What can we do?’” recalled Lawrence. “What can we do?”

 

Paul Choudhury is a handsome man with a thick shock of lightly greying black hair; his wife Maureen is a pretty blonde woman. Together with their two daughters, 12 and 10 years old, they are well known in their community and live in a comfortable two-storey house that is a haven for cats, including one feral cat that sleeps outside the front door in a cage warmed with a heating blanket.

 

They shared their news with their immediate family and friends, coped with doctors’ appointments and brain and body scans for Maureen, and were plied with casseroles and warm wishes from friends. But they had no idea that the window job had taken on a life of its own.

 

From Vinyltek, the word went out to Sears, and everyone else involved in the project to replace 21 windows and a patio door.

 

The answers, in urgent email messages, brought tears to Bob Lawrence’s eyes.

From the glass, PVC and hardware suppliers: “We’ll donate the materials.”

From the installers: “We’ll reduce our fees.”

 

Vinyltek employees also got involved. At a Christmas party, they volunteered to do the Choudhury job for free, after work hours — all 45 of the workers wanted to help out. The job became known as the Choudhury Christmas Cheer.

 

“Everybody involved not only [says] ‘What can we do?’ but got into the spirit of it,” Lawrence says.

 

Gibson was pulling strings on his end, too. At Sears, the installation manager, the sales manager, the regional manager and the national buyer all were contacted. The goal was to get a special deal for the Choudhury family — half price or better.

Finally, last Friday, Gibson sent one last email. This one he addressed to Paul and Maureen.

 

It said the job would be done for free.

 

Such an outpouring of caring and support came at a most tender time for Paul and Maureen and no email messages were read that Friday night. The couple and their two girls were preparing for Maureen’s visit to the hospital on Monday, when a surgeon was scheduled to remove a brain tumour.

 

The news from Sears would have to wait until Saturday morning. When Paul read it, he couldn’t fully take it in so he printed out the email out and showed it to his wife.

It brought them to tears, thinking about all the people who had come together to give it to them: Doug at Sears, Bob at Vinyltek, the suppliers who asked to remain anonymous and the 45 Vinyltek employees.

 

Their first thought: “We can’t take this.”

Their second: “What can we do?”

The answer, when it came, surprised everyone.

 

It especially shocked Heather Scott, the director of development for Share Family and Community Services. She was floored when she got the call from Paul on Tuesday.

The organization had just that day decided Christmas hampers would have to be smaller this year because 40% more people are using the food bank since September and the current food shortage is expected to last through the holiday season.

Scott took the call, heard Paul’s soft voice on the line and listened to his story, which ended with a figure: $10,000.

 

Paul and Maureen had decided to take the money they had saved for the window job — the job a bunch of thoughtful people wouldn’t let them pay for — and pass it on.

 

After the phone call, she was stunned. After meeting Paul on Wednesday and tucking the cheque into the pocket of her pretty pink jacket, she was beyond grateful.

“What Paul and Maureen have done is make sure many families in the Tri-Cities will have Christmas. It goes directly to food,” she said, noting the money would feed 1,000 families for two weeks or more.

 

And Doug Gibson and Bob Lawrence are just as thrilled about this turn of events.

“I’ve never been involved in something like this,” Gibson says. “The good news to the Choudhurys has become more good news for others.”

When Lawrence got the news in a text message his daughter read to him while he was driving her to skating on Sunday, he had to pull over.

 

“This is the best part,” says Lawrence. “Other people will be helped out as well.”

It’s become a cliché to say that if everybody does a little bit, a lot can be accomplished.

A dollar here, an hour of volunteering there, it all adds up.

 

It all adds up to a lot.

 

Paul Choudhury credits his wife with the idea of donating money saved for the windows to the Share food bank. “We knew we couldn’t say no to this gift. Maureen said: ‘How can we pass this on? What about the food bank?’”

 

Maureen Choudhury was expected to return home from hospital on Thursday and will undergo several rounds of chemotherapy to treat her cancer.