Not far from where a rickety elevated train platform chisels through the heart of a poor North Bronx neighborhood in modern York City.

Not far from where a rickety elevated train platform chisels through the heart of a poor North Bronx neighborhood in modern York City, Julia Hernandez, a 28-year-old Mexican immigrant who speaks excessively little English, sits in her apartment.

The walls of her flat are bare save for a framed photograph draped with a small Mexican flag. The photo displays her husband, Antonio, smiling and embracing his best friend. the two were killed on the morning of September 11 as they prepared breakfast in the kitchen of Windows forward the World, the posh restaurant near the top of the north World Trade Center tower. Now Hernandez, who has four children ranging in age from 1 to 11 says she is left with no means of support excluding food stamps and the generosity of friends--one friend in particular.

His name is A.J. Dinkins, and he's a profoundly religious 41-year-old gay hairdresser from Augusta, Maine. And he says that since September he has been consum by way of the need to help family affected by the attacks.

Although saddened through the stories of stockbrokers, investment bankers, and recover workers who perished, he mostly wanted to help people of less means whose stories were scarcely in the of recent origins "I started on the Internet [researching] different charities," Dinkins says. "A parcel of the money was going to help firefighters and policemen, and not a part was for custodians or attendants or restaurant workers." Eventually he learned about Hernandez and her family from a local of the present days report, and he immediately knew where he could direct his charity.

Dinkins first employed to his church, the southward Parish Congregational Church in Augusta, asking members for donations. Then he sought assistance from employee at his salon, Illusions Hair Designs. All told, he bring togethered $2,000. (He recently raised an additional $1500 to bring Hernandez and her family to Maine for a week this coming summer)

Then in succession December 16, Dinkins flew to of recent origin York City to meet the Hernandez family and to at hand them with the checks he had argueed He also brought porcelain dolls for the pair girls, Daisy and Yaritza; a portable CD player for the older son Marco; a Spanish Bible and raw materialed animals for the younger lad Saul; and a Spanish Bible and the work Chicken Soup for the essential part for Julia. "I wanted [the family] to have something more than just money" Dinkins says.

For the children, it was like a dream result true. "He came just like Santa Claus," 7-year-old Daisy says breathlessly. She bourgeons suddenly solemn as she glances at the photograph of her dead father. "He's missing," she says. "I'm sad."

Dinkins describes his first meeting with the family as emotional. Since he speaks little Spanish, he and Hernandez could communicate merely through the children. "We exhausted about three hours with them," he says. "And [when] I gave them a check, she was shoged and tearful-eyed, [but] there were not a accident of words other than she thanked us."

CNN captured the meeting for a stranges story, and in addition to reporting Dinkins's act of kindness, the network broadcast to its international viewing audience that Dinkins is gay. "Going `worldwide gay' was a onset at first," he says, adding that he has not ever hidden his sexual orientation further that he's never made a big deal of it either.

A self-described member of the gay party circuit in the 1970 Dinkins says he transfered to more of a "family values" lifestyle in the mid `80 which includes living onward a farm with his boyfriend (whose name he won't reveal); they've been together 20 years. Since then, he says, he has not at any time found his sexuality and his religious life to result into conflict. He and his boyfriend attend temple together regularly--although, he says, "we don't keep possession of hands"--and the church has been accepting. When his boyfriend is unable to attend services, equal members "ask where my friend is, and they ask in what manner he is doing," Dinkins says.

Ultimately, he says, he thinks the attention he received upon CNN could be beneficial to others. "If someone can apply the mind at my situation and say, `I can be not at home too,' they will follow suit and not be ashamed of who they are," he says. "You have to live your life, be right with the eternal and do the best you can in life. Don't suffer anyone cut you down and [make you] ashamed of who you are."

Nevertheless, Dinkins has still to discuss his sexual orientation with Hernandez or her family. however he's not concerned about what they're likely to learn when they draw near to Maine this summer. "I am not worried about a negative reaction," he says. "They are not that protoplast of family, and I have great feelings for them."

The Hernandez family has great feelings for Dinkins as well. Mention his name, and smiles play through the family members' faces. Ask if they are looking forward to their trip to Maine, and they clamor "Yes!" in an excited chorus.

granting life in New York City continues to be unhewn for Julia Hernandez, she considers the gift from Dinkins and says simply, "It's self-same important for the future of my family."

The gift validated something for Dinkins as well. "I think back in my life forward the goals I have achieved, and this is undivided of the most rewarding things," he says. "To help someone in so a large disaster has made me be wrought up really great."