By Brian McGrory in the Boston Globe. Thanks to Cialdo

Imagine the day your doctor sits you down and explains that the reason your gorgeous little boy never speaks, the reason he doesn't play like other kids, is because he's autistic.

"It was absolutely devastating," Sarah Wright says without even a hint of melodrama.

Wright describes her 6-year-old, Austin, as "striking - and not just because I'm his mother." He has bright blue eyes and auburn hair, and as an only child is the focal point of his parents' lives.

Austin made sounds as a young toddler, typical baby stuff, but soon stopped, sliding into a private world of lonely silence.

When the doctor broke the news, his parents shed the expected tears. Then this otherwise ordinary couple set out to make an extraordinary mark. It's extraordinary because these days our once quaint city and the world around it seem mired in tragedy and criminality - devastating social service cuts, predatory priests and conniving cardinals, ancient hatreds igniting into sickening acts of war.

But then along come the Wrights to remind us of what is good and decent and fair, and how regular people with average ambitions can puncture a blanket of gloom.

Born and bred in South Boston, they live in a single-family house on a quiet street where children in plaid uniforms walk to parochial school. Jerry is a driver, a Teamster; Sarah gave up her jobs as a waitress and bank clerk to care for their boy.

They enrolled Austin in the May Center for Early Childhood Education in Arlington, the type of unsung place where daily miracles arise from little money. In all, they have 45 autistic kids there from ages 3 to 14.

"They're great parents to work with," says Tania Treml, the school's program director. "They are so invested in their son's whole life. They love their son to death."

Indeed, Sarah often sits in the gym watching her boy. She's in constant touch with his teachers. She rejoices at every hint of progress.

"The littlest thing they do, you're ecstatic," she says. "He comes up now and says, `Momma,' and I just get goose bumps. He's now talking, putting sentences together. You can't have a conversation with him, but he can tell you his needs."

Most people in the Wrights' shoes would feel like the world owes them one for their hardship. But the Wrights believe they owe something back - specifically to the May Center.

Without a lot of money, they looked around for a way to raise some. They settled on a raffle, where they'd charge $100 for a ticket and split the proceeds between the school and the winner.

If you read the local papers, it seems as if half the people in South Boston are gun-packing gangsters who bury bodies in roadside graves, and the other half are hapless victims.

But what Southie really is and always has been is a community with an enormous sense of place and pride. Teamsters immediately cobbled together money for the expensive tickets. Friends paid for their tickets a little at a time. In all, the raffle raised $20,000 - half for the winner, half for the school.

Now ten grand might not seem like a whole lot of money for schools like Harvard, where alumni contribute tens of millions. But at the May Center, a few thousand can literally change lives.

Steve Mulrey won the raffle. He owns Amrheins, a Southie landmark that serves good food at honest prices. When Sarah called him with the news, his response was as follows: "There's no way I'm taking that money." The check went straight to the school.

These days, the May Center has shiny new gym equipment to replace all that was old and torn. It has a new music tutor who teaches every student in every class to sing.

And the rest of us have something else. We have the knowledge that the Wrights and thousands of others like them will quietly make this city sane and humane once again.