by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Lina Gauthier totally empathized with the plight of poor Kim Lalonde the minute she walked into the single parents weekly meeting in NDG.

Jeez! Kim was in a seriously bad way!

The gang attending the weekly encounter in a building overlooking the cliff on St-Jacques W. listened and were moved as Kim told of being overwhelmed, beleaguered and downtrodden.

The gathering, organized by West End do-gooder group Head and Hands, is a sort of swap meet where young moms “exchange physical resources, furniture, baby clothing and attend workshops about family budgeting and dealing with divorce,” according to Head and Hands’ manager, the likeable Nicole Sylvester.

The meeting features no shortage of you-go-girl female bonding with lots of empathy and helping hands being shot out. And when it comes to the royal cult of victimhood, Kim Lalonde attained almost instant pedigree as a black and blue princess of outrageous fortune.

“When they were taking her information, all the others were like, ‘Poor you! Oh, poor you!’” says Lina. The women sympathized with the 200-pound newcomer in the yellow jacket. A boyfriend who tracked her down from Ottawa was stalking and beating poor Kim. Police, rather unreasonably, were telling Kim that she couldn’t recover her goods. Kim produced a healthy supply of tales of woe straight from the factory of sad stories.

Lina, a warm-hearted soul, figured she met Kim at a real rough point in her life. “Every possible crisis happened to this girl in the three days we were together. Her mother died, her boyfriend beat her, she was moving out and the police were being mean to her. They said they’d release the boyfriend if she went to get her stuff because she’d be guilty of messing around with evidence. And oh yeah, her daughter had an epileptic seizure, too.”

Of the little wisdom I can impart from my days on this earth, I can assure you that generosity is a sort of madness. It’s a rare, excellent yet frequently misguided impulse. Conversely, all of us - rich and poor alike - want a freebie, be it day or night. We open doors wide for freebies.

Lina, who is a single 25-year-old mother of two, says she has zero in her Royal Bank account and owes $8,000 in student loans. But Lina trusted members of the group she’s attended since 1999. It’s where she met “her closest friends.” And Kim was a rising star in the hierarchy in this particular circle of young females. Kim, apparently ready to inherit her mother’s cash, needed Lina to cash a few cheques so she could find a new apartment to escape the aforementioned vicious boyfriend. She also needed to house her rarely-seen children, who always seemed strangely slow to answer to the names Lina called them. Lina agreed to use her overdraft account to cash some of Kim’s cheques.

In went a cheque for $2,900. “I phoned the bank and asked if it went through, and they said, ‘Yeah, it’s okay,’” says Lina. Next came another cheque for $5,700 and then another for $6,800. The bank soon told her the cheques had bounced. Kim disappeared. Her cell phone still works. She just doesn’t talk when you call her. Meanwhile, Lina is out $3,900 in total. She was saved from further debt because the bank had limited her withdrawals because of an outstanding student loan.

“She’s good,” says Lina. “I believed everything she said.” Lina’s waiting to get back the cheques to use as evidence to file a police report.

Why, by the way, do people always praise fraud artists?

Lina says the fiasco will force her to sacrifice her plans to go back to school this fall. “The bank says I have three months to pay it. Then they send the file to the credit bureau and they’ll come here and take whatever I have, welfare, family allowance, whatever it takes to get the money back.”

Lina will happily accept donations. Call Head and Hands if you feel generous.:

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca