WORCESTER, Mass. — Last Tuesday while Ariel Nguyen, 5, was getting ready for school her dad set her wheelchair-style stroller outside the front door. He says he came back a few minutes later and it was gone.
“When the bus came I just go out there and where is it? Where’s the… where’s the stroller? It’s missing,” said her dad Quan Nguyen. “I told Auntie. She said it is out there. I said no, it’s not. Even the bus driver says ‘What happened? What happened?’ Oh, yeah, somebody stole the stroller. I say you got to be kidding me.”
But it was no joke. A thief stealing from those most in need.
“She can’t possibly walk up to the steps of the bus,” said Quan Nguyen. “She needs somebody holding her to walk.”
“Who does this? How do you steal from a child?” said Andrea Castinetti of The Kindness Coalition of Massachusetts.
When she saw the story from Worcester police, she decided to immediately pay the $2800 for a new stroller and then take any donations from the community, but even she was surprised.
“We actually ended up raising the money literally in I think four hours so I didn’t technically have to pay for it,” said Castinetti. “It was really amazing how many people said they wanted to help and we just provided the outlet for them to jump in and help.”
The new stroller will arrive next week. In a time of financial uncertainty, Ariel’s community showed her what a thief can never steal.
“It’s hard to know that people like that don’t care and don’t realize like those things put a toll on parents,” said her aunt Virgen Cruz. “Things like that, because at the end of the day sometimes insurance doesn’t cover things like that because they’ve just paid for it so, you know sometimes so it’s nice that the community came up with that.”
“I can’t there’s no word to express it,” said Quan. “I just can’t. After all that, my heart is touched.”
“There are amazing people out there,” said his wife Kristy Nguyen. “I was shocked. I was like wow, that’s a lot of people. It’s Amazing how they are toward my daughter.”
If anyone has any information on the stroller please contact the Detective Bureau by sending an anonymous text to 274637 TIPWPD + your message or send an anonymous web-based message at worcesterma.gov/police.
Calls can also be made to the Worcester Police Detective Bureau at (508) 799-8651.
The Worcester community rallied together and raised $3,400 for the Nguyen family to replace Ariel’s stroller.
The first image is a catalog image of the stroller; the other image is an actual picture of the stolen stroller.
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