How can you measure hope?

I found myself asking the question after talking with Mike and Angelica “Gel” Penta at Mayor Frank Picozzi’s fundraiser Wednesday.

Mike and Gel serve up a lot of hope at Gel’s Kitchens in Warwick and West Warwick whether they think of what they’re doing in those terms or not.

Gel pulled me aside at the fundraiser to tell me of 14-year-old Madi Brodeur, a Pilgrim High School freshman who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that was initially thought to be mono. She has started chemotherapy at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and already Gel and her team – Madi’s mother, Jen Moore, and their friend Jennifer O’Neil – are doing all they can to support Madi.

Mike and Gel have been down this road many times.

On Tuesday, they recognized Amelia Bernard’s first year in remission from leukemia.  Amelia is now 5 years old and in kindergarten. She underwent two years of chemo treatment during which Gel’s Kitchen customers donated to help the Bernard family. They spread the campaign throughout the community using  Facebook and with the help of other organizations and the mayor.

“People always want to help,” said Gel. She sees herself as “the doorway” to bringing the community together. She made national news when the School Department started giving students who had missed lunch payments sun butter sandwiches. The students didn’t take them. They didn’t want to be stigmatized as deadbeats. Gel jumped in to help. Her campaign paid off the debts and led to a Westbay Community Action program that pays for the lunches of students who can’t afford them. West Warwick now has a free lunch program.

Gel and Mike’s personal stories resonate. Gel went through a domestic-violence situation in a prior relationship. Mike, who was a Pilgrim student at the time, and his younger brother found themselves homeless. They lived on the street, keeping their condition a secret from authorities.

They know what hard times are like.

Now Jen Moore, who has worked on fundraising campaigns with Gel, is faced with caring for a family and supporting Madi as best she can.

 “As a parent, I never thought I would be there,” she says.

What can she do?

She’s plunged into building support for Madi in every way she can think of.  Madi’s hashtag is #FightWithMadi. And there are a number of Madi items, from bracelets and car window stickers, car air fresheners to magnets, lawn signs and T-shirts. As you can see, it’s more than raising money; it’s building awareness and positive thoughts for Madi. It’s building hope for Madi, her family and the community.

When thought of in those terms, giving yields more than a good feeling.  Surely money is helpful in meeting obligations and, as Gel points out, enabling things like “sky-diving” that may seemingly be of little value in the battle against cancer.  Gel looks at it as fulfilling dreams and strengthening those directly involved.

They have the community at their backs, a reinforcement of their faith and hope that things will work out … that Madi will be OK and that she is strong.