Contractor replaces senior’s grocery money after theft

LYNN – AJ Izzo said he had his own mother in mind Tuesday when he offered a $100 Stop and Shop gift certificate to a woman who had her wallet and cash stolen on Market Street Monday.Joanne Dube, a 66-year-old Salem resident, said she set her wallet containing about $80 on a counter in Dunkin’ Donuts Monday morning while she retrieved a straw for a coffee she had just purchased. She didn’t realize the wallet was missing until Monday afternoon when she reached into her pocket book to get money.”I must have laid my wallet down instead of putting it into my pocket book. I didn’t even think about it. I was so upset. It really did a number on me,” Dube said Tuesday.Workers at PACE (Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly), the Market Street program where Dube gets medical checkups and socializes twice a week, accompanied her back to Dunkin’ Donuts and helped her search trash barrels in a fruitless effort to find the wallet.She called and canceled her debit card, but losing the money left Dube without grocery cash. She wrote an angry letter aimed at the wallet thief and the Daily Item published it on Tuesday.”It hit me in the heart,” said Salem resident Izzo after reading the letter.Izzo’s mother is roughly Dube’s age and, like the former hairdresser, lives on a fixed income. He reached out to Dube Tuesday and offered her the Stop and Shop grocery card. Dube said the local contractor’s generosity left her “shaking like a leaf.””He said, ‘My mother’s a little older and if the same thing happened to her I don’t know what I’d do,'” Dube said.Izzo met Dube at her home Tuesday evening to present her with the gift card. She in turn presented him with a big hug.”God sent me an angel. A real angel,” she said. “I’m dumfounded.”The two chatted about his children and her grandchildren, and Dube again thanked her new friend for his act of kindness. Izzo said he hoped she would learn from what happened to her and that others would learn from him.”Hopefully people will read this and want to pay it forward a little bit,” he said. “The world needs more of that, especially in Lynn.”Izzo, 44, said good fortune also motivated his act of kindness. He has worked as a mason for 25 years and built his firm – Avico Mason Contractors Inc. – up from small jobs to big projects, including one underway on a 4 Freeman Square building and a Market Square project completed in 2010.He said his three longtime employees do top-quality work and said he gets most of his business through referrals.”We go out of our way to accommodate you,” he said.Dube is a Beverly native who lived in Lynn for 33 years before moving to Salem. She plans to go shopping on Thursday with a senior companion who helps her with chores and purchase her favorite TV dinner.”It’s Swedish meatballs – I’ll stock up on them,” she said.Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected]. Taylor Provost can be reached at [email protected].