Don Haggerty has made a new friend for life.
When Justin Shaffer heard Haggerty’s cart had been stolen he knew he had to do something.
“He uses it for extra cash on the side. For someone to steal his cart, it doesn’t make much sense,” said Shaffer.
Don, who lives with cerebral palsy, built his own cart out of plywood over 20 years ago, but ‘Black Betty’ was taken out of his garage eight days ago.
A devastating loss, but he’s thrilled to have a new one.
“I love it. I took it out two times and people were totally amazed by it. People were shaking my hand, patting me on the back,” said Haggerty.
Shaffer, a welder for Moncton-based company McSheffrey Industries, designed and built the new cart for Haggerty so that he could continue to collect bottles and cans in his west end neighbourhood.
A photo of Don Haggerty’s new bottle cart (Courtesy: Michelle Ward)
It cost around $1,000 to build and the materials were paid for by his company.
It was delivered to Haggerty on Saturday.
“He was super excited to get it. He showed up with only one shoe he was so excited,” said Shaffer.
Haggerty’s friend Edith Breau was blown away by the act of kindness.
“For somebody to do this, it’s absolutely amazing. You know if there was more people like that in the world, we’d be in a good place, we really would be,” said Breau.
A photo of Don Haggerty and his new cart. (Courtesy: Michelle Ward)
Haggerty’s neighbours Steve and Michelle Ward were in the process of trying to build a new cart for Haggerty when they reached out to Shaffer to see if he could help – something he was more than happy to do.
“Just the right thing to do,” said Shaffer. “I feel really good about it, yeah, and I think Don feels pretty good about it too.”
Haggerty said a friend of his thinks he spotted the old cart by a grocery store last week.
He’s still interested in getting that one back because ‘Black Betty’ still has a lot of sentimental value to him.