Driver Finds ‘Real, Live Angel’

Joseph Godino, whose mammoth commute had buried him in gas bills, recently received a fuel-efficient car as a gift from a Huntington Beach woman who read about his plight.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, got in touch with Godino, met him at a Honda dealership and bought him a white four-door 2002 Civic.

“It’s like a real miracle,” said a shocked and giddy Godino, who picked up the car July 22. “There is a real, live angel in Orange County.”

Godino was featured in a July 16 Los Angeles Times story that described how high gas prices had caused financial hardship among many motorists -- especially those who have long commutes.

Godino, 58, had moved to Apple Valley to find affordable housing and got stuck with an increasingly expensive 200-mile round-trip commute to his truck-driving job in Buena Park.

Within days of the story, Godino received a call at work from a woman who said something about getting him a car and asked him to meet her at the Norm Reeves Honda Superstore in Huntington Beach. He figured the dealership wanted to help somehow. But when Godino arrived and asked to see the woman, the dealership staff was unaware of what he was talking about.

“They came in separately. It was like a blind date,” said Glenn Wightman, the salesman who handled the purchase. The two strangers chatted in a conference room for a few minutes, then headed to the lot to look at cars, Wightman said.

“She said she read the article and that she was very moved by it, and that she wanted to help me” by buying him a car, Godino said.

“She said, ‘I am well off. Pick one.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

He selected a Civic with about 50,000 miles on it and then had to leave for work.

His anonymous benefactor, a woman he described as in her 30s, stayed behind to handle the details. She paid about $16,000 in cash for the car, including an extended warranty, taxes and related costs, Godino said.

“I was floored,” said salesman Wightman.

So was Joan Whitmore, Godino’s credit counselor at ByDesign Financial Solutions, a nonprofit that was formed from the merger of Consumer Credit Counselors of Los Angeles with several similar services in the state.

“It was as if it happened to me,” said Whitmore, whom Godino authorized to speak about his finances. “I was so elated.”

She said the Honda would help ease the drain on Godino’s budget from gasoline prices. But she added that he still had more work to do to stabilize his finances.

Godino and his wife, Maria, are still in shock over the woman’s generosity, and they are thrilled that he now commutes in the Civic instead of the Ford Ranger pickup that was costing him $650 a month for gas.

“It should cut my gas bill almost in half, and that’s just going back and forth to work,” Godino said of the Civic.

“Words cannot express my gratitude.... Every time I see the car, I think of her.”