Immigrants are there for these retirees. So the retirees decided to be there for them.

[Demovictory9]

Immigrants are there for these retirees. So the retirees decided to be there for them.
(they contributed the money for the citizenship filings - $40,000 - and tutored them on citizenship test)


Augustine Taylor is there when the garbage disposal snarls, when the Internet quits, when the lights fade and flicker.


Whenever the senior citizens living at Goodwin House pick up the phone, 46-year-old Taylor saves the day — his lilting accent the sound of their apartments’ salvation.

That accent? “Sierra Leone,” he tells them.

And because that’s what they hear so often — the sounds of Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Haiti, Jamaica — these residents decided to do something extraordinary for the migrants who take such good care of them, who treat their senior status with an honor and value that our youth-worshipping, throwaway culture too often neglects.

----------

“It’s a crisis,” said Anne Stewart, 79, a resident at Goodwin House in a suburban part of Northern Virginia called Baileys Crossroads who loves talking to the workers to learn about their lives.

“And what are we doing?” Stewart said, before pulling down her mask so I could hear her stage whisper, “We’re deporting them.”

So they decided to help in the best way they could, with one resident, Rita Siebenaler, leading an effort that turned nearly 90 employees of the Goodwin Houses in Baileys Crossroads and in Alexandria into nearly 90 new American citizens.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/immigrants-are-there-for-these-retirees-so-the-retirees-decided-to-be-there-for-them/ar-AAOE3IF?ocid=msedgntp

[DFW]

1. Sierra Leone and Bailey's Crossroads--two names from my past I have never heard together before

Bailey's Crossroads was the intersection of Columbia Pike and Route 7 (hence, the Crossroads). A small shopping center was there, across from a dirt runway airfield that handled single engine propellor planes. There was an all night Lebanese place serving kafta sandwiches called "Steak in a Sack." Some guys I used to hang out with would drive there (I couldn't--I wasn't old enough to drive yet) after we finished up playing our rock music somewhere. I grew up a few miles from there. It was still almost a wilderness then. Washington suburbs now. Malls and upper-end apartment complexes.

A good friend of mine and my dad's named Helen Thomas had two women from Sierra Leone helping her toward the end of her life. They were the kindest, most attentive people you could meet. When I first met them, they started to explain to me where Sierra Leone was. I said there was no need. I knew exactly where it was, since my daughter had been with the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in Sierra Leone for one summer during law school. It was kinda dangerous, but she's fearless anyway, and it was definitely a more intriguing summer internship than clerking for some judge in Westchester County.

[Hekate]

2. Thanks for adding this memory

[Demovictory9]

4. Wow...amazing one story mentions 2 locatipns related to your life

[DFW]

5. What are the odds of that?

Your post hooked me for that alone!

[Hekate]

3. Thanks for letting us know this heartwarming piece of news

[FSogol]

6. Great story. Thanks for posting. The name Bailey's Crossroads is because

that was once the winter camp for Bailey's circus which later because Barnum and Bailey's and then Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey's Circus.