A Milwaukee-area woman who found herself without a home and without a vehicle now has a new set of wheels thanks to the kindness of a West Allis business owner.

The car was presented Thursday, but the story starts about four weeks ago. 

That's when Kent Childs, the owner of the Midas at 1456 S.108th St., West Allis, saw a woman sitting under a tree outside of his shop. She was surrounded by her possessions, including an urn, said Randy Wilson, Midas district manager.

Childs approached the woman, Anna McAttee, and learned that she had trusted someone to fix her car and they "basically took her money," Wilson said, leaving her with a car that couldn't be fixed.

She ended up scrapping the vehicle, and before it got picked up, she pulled all her belongings out, including an urn containing her daughter's remains. 

Childs told McAttee she could store some of her stuff at the shop. He called an Uber to take her to the shelter she had been staying at.

And he told her he'd get her a car.

Thursday at the West Allis Midas, that promise became reality, as Wilson presented McAttee with keys to a freshly fixed-up 2004 Ford Focus ZX3.

"I'm so happy," McAttee repeated, as she looked at her new vehicle, having been recently overhauled with a new engine, shocks, struts, tires, brakes and mirrors.

She said when Childs told her he was going to get her a car, she didn't believe him.

"I thought he was lying, because everybody's always lying to me," she said. "They say they're going to do something and then don't. But he came through. He kept his promise and really I am so grateful."

For McAttee, the car will mean both transportation and protection. She said her daughter was killed last year and she doesn't always feel safe taking the bus.

"I've got to worry about me getting to where I was going safely," she said. 

McAttee currently has a part-time job with Summerfest, but Wilson said the seasonal job will be ending soon and she's looking for other employment.

Wilson said the vehicle, a hatchback, belonged to a customer at the Waukesha Midas shop. It needed some repairs, and they didn't want to spend the money.

"So rather than have them get rid of it, or sell it, or whatnot, we actually bought it from them and then performed all the repairs on our own," Wilson said.

"We wanted to get something that was good on gas, had a low cost of maintenance in the future, if need be, but also something that had that hatchback, so if her possessions are in there, it's easy for her to get them in and out," he said.

Wilson said the goal was simply to help a person in need.

"Midas as a company, and us as a franchise, we try and be very active in the community," he said. "Hopefully, someone seeing this or reading this story of it will put them out there to maybe do some acts of kindness to someone else out there and help spread some love." 

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Contact Bob Dohr at 262-361-9140 or bob.dohr@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BobDohr1.