A Simple Act of Kindness Grows
/The Boston Herald
It's a simple story of simple goodness that won't make Oprah or headlines because these kinds of things never do. People helping people. One ordinary woman making a difference in the lives of thousands.
Ho hum. Pass the clicker and turn the page.
It's a shame that goodness doesn't make the heart beat a little faster because Lynn Kenn's story would make great TV. It has drama, color, little kids, babies, even a dog. It's a photo opportunity waiting to happen.
Picture it: A winter's day. A house in the country. A grey cape with a bright yellow door. Snow on the wide lawn. Children of all sizes outside playing in the snow.
A car pulls into the driveway already crowded with cars and a black lab comes running, wagging its tail. Visitor and dog enter the house. There's a chorus of hellos from the next room.
What was once a regular living room is today packed ceiling to floor with baby things: disposable diapers, bottles, rattles, baby blankets, pink sleepers, blue booties, bibs, buntings, stuffed bears.
Lynn Kenn is at the edge of this mountain of things, reaching into plastic bags full of baby lotion, shampoo, baby wipes, dresses, overalls, knitted sweaters. Her daughters, Elizabeth and Melissa, and Elizabeth's daughters are helping.
Cut here and go back 13 years. It's 1985 and the living room is a real living room and Kenn has a tiny baby in her arms. John Paul, her son, her ninth child.
On the TV there is news about the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and what Kenn wants to do more than anything in the world is go to Washington and march because she feels she needs to do something to mark this "bleak day."
But she can't leave her baby or her family. So she calls a few friends and says, "Why don't we go out to lunch and have a small baby shower?" They do and then Kenn takes the gifts to Pregnancy Help of Brighton to be distributed to women in need.
The next year she does the same thing only there are more friends and more gifts and as the years go by the event gets so big that it's moved from Kenn's living room to a church hall.
One church hall becomes many church halls becomes an archdiocesan event. Last year 35 Catholic churches had a shower on the same Sunday in January. This year 80 churches participated.
John Paul is 13 now. He comes in from the snow because he's in charge of all the disposable diapers. Last year he counted and packaged 346 boxes. This year he's expecting double that.
"People are amazing," Kenn says looking around at the mountain of things. "And this is only half of it. Half the churches will be dropping off their gifts on the 22nd, the 25th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade."
Kenn and her family are amazing, too, renting trucks and driving their vans all over the state. This year because so many more parishes participated in the shower, the Kenns enlisted the World Apostolate of Fatima to help them with the pick-ups.
Tomorrow the baby shower will continue at Holy Ghost Church in Whitman and at St. Joseph's in Woburn, where more than 30 parishes will be dropping off their baby gifts, which Kenn will bring back to her house.
In addition to all the clothes and baby supplies, $ 10,000 was donated in cash last year. "There was just a basket at the back of the churches. No collections. Just what you can give. People are so good," Kenn says.
It's a quiet thing, goodness. It doesn't make the front page.
When everything is sorted and packaged, Kenn will rent a big truck and take all the gifts and supplies to Pregnancy Help. And the living room will be back to normal, until next year when it will all begin again.
