We know that there are men, women and children throughout the world crippled by birth defect, disease or accident. We imagine that they move through their day, perhaps like someone we know, by wheelchair or prosthetic device. In reality this isn’t the case. For over one hundred million poor, physically disabled people the options for mobility are limited to crawling or being carried — the benefit of medical invention beyond their financial reach. John Tocci was shocked by this realization but impressed that the charity, Free Wheelchair Mission, had undertaken the monumental task of righting this humiliatingly brutal situation.

Free Wheelchair Mission

Don Schoendorfer, haunted by the 1977 memory of a crippled woman clawing her way along a Moroccan roadway, distained even by beggars, set about to invent an affordable wheelchair that could be donated free to those unable to afford this humane luxury. A talented MIT-trained mechanical engineer, he spent a year, in his spare time, designing and building 100 affordable, durable and easily manufactured wheelchairs based on a plastic lawn chair, bicycle wheels and metal casters. Eventually he partnered with his pastor to strategize distribution of the wheelchairs during a missionary trip to India. He was dismayed to find that the shipping costs made this dream nearly impossible. Don took four wheelchairs to India. The absolute joy expressed by the first recipient moved Don to donate his life to finding a way to make his “miracle” and the “miracle” of disabled, poverty-stricken people worldwide.

World Vision

In 2006 World Vision partnered with Free Wheelchair Mission to defray the considerable cost of shipping wheelchairs throughout the world. John, a long-standing patron of World Vision projects, leapt at the chance to assist World Vision meet a goal of delivering 16,000 wheelchairs on behalf of the Free Wheelchair Mission. Tocci donated 795 wheelchairs, in the names of its 2006 project partners, during the Christmas season.

Tocci has a year-end tradition of making a meaningful donation, in the names of its clients and associates, to a select charity. Past recipients have included Habitat for Humanity International, World Vision Inc., the World Vision Appalachia Storehouse and the World Vision New York City Storehouse.

For immediate release July 7th, 2008 Tocci Building Companies Woburn, MA. John Tocci, CEO; Joseph Cavallaro, Project Manager; Rich Regitano, Assistant Project Manager and LEED certification administrator; and John White, Project Superintendent, were invited guests to the July 1, 2008 ribbon cutting for the Lexington, MA select service Starwood hotels—aloft and element. The eco-friendly and spacious 123 unit element and the stylish and social-centric 136 unit aloft are the first and fourth of these two new brands to hit the world market.

July 1, 2008 Time Capsule

Cooperation and coordination, supported through the use of Building Information Modeling technology and dedication to success, enabled Tocci and the design and subcontract firms to flow with the evolutionary process of building first-out-of-the block brands and open on time.

Several state and local government and business dignitaries noted with pride and excitement the element’s status as the first LEED-certified brand in the state and in New England. Work on the Lexington element will be the data backbone that informs LEED design, process and material decisions for future elements and other Starwood brands. Tocci played a significant role in the Silver LEED compliance and certification process for the hotel with the decision to go from “green features” to full certification embraced after hotel construction began.

Read more about these two Tocci-built hotels at:

• Hotel Newswire Article 1
• Hotel Newswire Article 2
• Boston Globe Article
• Hotels Magazine Article

Groundbreaking

Christopher Hartzell, General Manager aloft and element Lexington LEFT and Scott Thrun, Director of Real Estate Marketing, Starwood RIGHT

Joe Cavallaro, Project Manager LEFT; Rich Regitano, Assistant Project Manager RIGHT