In the spring of 2024, I joined the Chat Pals program and was matched with my Pal, an 83-year-old woman who had been living alone since her husband passed away more than a decade ago. With no children or close family nearby—only a nephew two states away who visits sporadically, she often felt isolated and described herself as a hermit.

When we first met, trust wasn’t easy for her. Just a few months before, in January, she had been scammed out of her life savings in a cruel Publisher’s Clearing House scam. She had been left broken and devastated, unsure if she could trust anyone again—including me. It took time, patience, and many conversations before she finally believed that I wasn’t just another scammer.

Mostly, my Pal just loves to talk. She shares stories of growing up in the 1940s, her days as an art student at Cleveland Institute of Art in the ’60s, and her travels through Europe during a time of cultural and political revolution. Some of her stories are so wild they sound like fiction! She’s truly one of a kind in this day and age—no TV, only classical music on an AM radio, and no stove—just a microwave for cooking.

Then, this past February, something changed. She started mentioning a gnat infestation in her kitchen, including inside her microwave—her only way to prepare meals. Each week, she’d tell me how the problem was getting worse. I knew I had to do something.

Chat Pals is a virtual program, so to truly help her, we had to make a choice—we mutually agreed to end our official Chat Pals relationship and become real-life friends.

When I first visited, I realized the gnats were just a symptom of bigger challenges. She was piling up her garbage indoors because she couldn’t safely take it outside in the wintry ice. Her faucet was leaking. She couldn’t reach her cupboards, so she left dishes to dry on the counter, creating puddles of standing water—all perfect conditions for gnats to thrive.

Together, we tackled it step by step. We cleaned her countertops, organized her kitchen to make things more accessible, and removed the built-up garbage. But the biggest challenge was her faucet.

That’s when something incredible happened. I reached out to a dear friend who has another friend—a kindhearted plumber—who agreed to come take a look at my Pal’s faucet. Not only did he come to check out the leak, but he also purchased and installed a brand-new faucet for her, refusing to take a dime in return. The moment my Pal saw her working sink, her smile stretched from Cleveland’s east side to the west!

Though we’re no longer officially in the Chat Pals program, we still have our regular calls, just as we always did. But now, she knows she has a friend she can trust—someone who will be there for her.