THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503230163
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
A helping hand from a corporate giant and a local gas station dealer will keep a Good Samaritan on the road to do good works.
The aid comes in the form of a year's supply of gasoline for Richard Hassell, an 84-year-old Norfolk native who has spent more than 50 years providing food, shelter and clothing for the poor and homeless in Hampton Roads.
Hassell runs Christian Action, a one-man charity that depends on local businesses, churches and social services agencies for aid to help people who have lost their jobs or lost their homes due to fire.
To contact both clients and suppliers, Hassell ranges from the North Carolina line to Newport News in a maroon van, which is marked with the Christian Action logo.
He operates out of his apartment at Bobbitt Midrise Retirement Community in Norfolk, fielding telephone calls for assistance at all hours of the day and night.
What he cannot scrounge from donors - private and corporate - Hassell pays for out of his own meager monthly Social Security income.
The idea of providing free gasoline for the Christian Action van was suggested by Sandy Falkenstein, a Chesapeake woman who in February wrote Shell Oil Co. president Phillip J. Carroll in Houston.
Carroll passed the word down the corporate ladder to Steve Leisten, Shell Oil Co. representative in Tidewater. Leisten got together with Bill Edney, owner of Thalia Shell Service, at the corner of Virginia Beach Boulevard and Constitution Drive, where Hassell often gases up the van.
It was agreed that Shell Oil Co. would chip in $300 and Edney would contribute $200 this year for Hassell's gasoline, said Leisten. The arrangement will be reviewed at the end of the year and could be continued.
``Mr. Hassell is a very interesting man,'' said Leisten. ``I'd seen billboards with his picture on them, but I really never knew what he was all about.''
Said Edney, ``We felt like this is a good thing to do. He's lived his life helping others.''
Hassell is grateful for the assistance and sought to publicize big oil's assistance to the little guy. ``It's my way of saying thanks,'' he said.
``I've had to pay for my gas out of my Social Security. This is a big help to me.''
Hassell has been recognized locally and nationally for his charitable works. In 1992, he was named one of President Bush's ``thousand points of light.'' He also has been honored on NBC Nightly News and by the Virginia General Assembly and the Urban League of Hampton Roads.
He has even been included in a fourth-grade Virginia history textbook, which devotes a whole page - plus color photograph - to his work in helping the poor and downtrodden. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Richard Hassell, founder of Christian Action, looks on as Bill
Edney, owner of Thalia Shell, pumps in free gas. Hassell collects
and distributes clothes and other items for the needy.
by CNB