CREATING A LEGACY OF GIVING

AFTER LOSING THEIR SON CHASE IN A CAR ACCIDENT, THE DEBARROS FAMILY HONORS HIS GENEROUS SPIRIT, ONE SMALL ACT AT A TIME

- EILEEN FINAN ABBY ROEDEL

People who knew Chase Soares could depend on two sure things: The 23-year-old never left his Teaticket, Mass., home without a basketball—as a kid, he’d stuff it in his backpack; as he grew older, it was at the ready in his car in case of a pickup game—and he was always willing to lend a hand or a sympathetic ear.

If his stepdad, Norman, the 51-year-old steamboat captain who raised him, forgot his lunch or his coat, Chase would stop what he was doing and drive it down to the ferry. When he learned a classmate’s mother had died, he was the first to reach out: “I’m here for you,” he told him. Once, after noticing a friend struggling, Chase cashed his own paycheck to buy him groceries. “I got you” was Chase’s standard reply. “So many people have told me things he’s done, how he helped with this or got them through that,” says his mom, Brooke DeBarros, 51. “Chase made sure you were fed, clothed and you were okay.”