Huffington Magazine Issue 19 | Page 101

Exit Fifteen-month-old Angel Babcock was initially found alive in a field in New Pekin, Ind., after a tornado had destroyed her home and killed her parents, little brother and her two-month old sister on March 2, 2012. The baby clung to life for two days until she died that Sunday, and was buried with her family in a pauper’s field. While the baby was still fighting for her life that weekend, Wolniewicz was determined to help her in any way he could after hearing of her survival on the news. “I was thinking… I wanted to give her a gift, and money, and I wanted to let her know that I care for her,” he says. The fact that this little girl had lost everything — her home, her belongings, her family — struck Wolniewicz. He had been displaced from his own home for six months in January of 2010 and lost all of his possessions. In this respect, he was able to empathize. “I kind of felt it… I halfway felt it,” he says, conscientious of the fact that he was lucky to have his family and a home to go back to, eventually. GREATEST PERSON OF THE WEEK AWAY FROM HOME Catherine and David Wolniewicz had lived in Danvers, Mass., all their lives — they were even neighbors. Today, the parents of four volunteer extensively in their community and for the various groups and sports teams that fill up their kids’ schedules. The close-knit family managed to keep it all together when an oil leak in their basement forced them from their home for months. Looking back, the oil spill itself was the least of their problems — its consequences — medi- HUFFINGTON 10.21.12 Wolniewicz earned an “Emergency Preparedness” pin from the Cub Scouts.