Person of the Week: Jerry Quinn

Jan. 14, 2005 — -- Jerry Quinn lives in Boston. He's 52 years old and owns a bar and restaurant. Last Monday, as he does most days, he settled down to lunch and the newspaper.

"All of a sudden, I see this article in the paper and it was in regard to somebody who needed funds for a transplant," Quinn said. "It stated in there that he would pretty much be in a wheelchair in a year if he didn't get some help. It started to make me think. I said I'd really like to help this guy."

The guy in question is Franklin Piedra. He is 33 years old. He arrived in New York from Ecuador 10 years ago and has been suffering from chronic kidney failure almost ever since. When he got sick, the restaurant where he worked let him go. Since then, he has shined shoes for a living on Wall Street.

Piedra is a viable candidate for an organ transplant, and his mother wants to give him a kidney. But he has no health insurance -- that's a problem familiar to millions of Americans -- and a transplant would cost $100,000.

Piedra wrote to the government asking for help. They didn't even write back. He contacted the Ecuadorean Consulate in New York. Basically, he said, they suggested he go back to Ecuador and die.

Jerry Quinn had another idea.

"I'm not a very wealthy guy," Quinn said. "I'm comfortably off. I got this thing in my life -- you can only use one car, you can only use one kitchen, you can only use one bathroom, you can only eat so much and drink so much, so that's my theory in life. What more do we need?"

Helping a Stranger

Quinn has been saving for a new place to live. He was about to put a large down payment on a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Boston -- with a river view and all. But then he had another thought.

"When I woke, it was on my mind again.The first thing that came to mind was the condominium downtown," he said. "You know what? I think I can do without the water views and use that money to help this gentleman Franklin."

Quinn called the reporter at the New York Post who had written the story. "She asked me how much I want to donate. And I think she was figuring maybe a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars because people were very good, they got a lot of response, " he said. "And I turned around and said to her, 'I'd like to do the whole thing.' She said, 'Are you serious?' and I said, 'Yeah, I'd like to do the whole thing.'"

Pretty soon, Quinn was in New York to meet Piedra. He'd already sent the money.

"He came into the room and I felt a little funny," Quinn recalled. "I was just a little bit nervous, and he put his arms around me and he hugged me. And he said to me, 'You are wonderful. You are an angel.' And I said, 'Thank you.' I could feel the shivers running down my back."

Piedra can sum up Quinn's role very succinctly: "He is the best person in my life."

From One Immigrant to Another

Paying for the transplant was a gift from one immigrant to another. Quinn grew up on his father's farm near Galway in the west of Ireland.

"It's hard work," he recalled. "Your father will have you milking and cleaning out from under the cows. When you're younger, you love it, when you're older, you want to get away from it."

As a young man, Quinn came to America on a vacation and, like a lot of the Irish, he simply stayed. He became a bartender. He did pretty well and finally got his own place, which serves Asian food and Irish beer.

He has a very strong sense of community. For the last four years, Quinn has cooked and delivered dinner to kids at a nearby school who are not getting all the nutrients they need. On Christmas, he invites anyone in need to come in and join him for a meal.

If all goes well, Piedra will get his new kidney this month. After that, he said, he's going to work harder on his English -- because now he has a future.

As for Quinn, most of all he seems genuinely pleased -- in a modest sort of way -- that he could make a difference.

"He said, 'You know, when I get on my feet, when I'm pretty much established and have the operation over,' he said, 'I actually want to help people too, just like what you are doing for me,'" Quinn said. "That made me feel really good. Made me really, really feel good."