Columnist Susan Snyder: A Las Vegas lesson in generosity

Friday, June 15, 2001 | 4:38 a.m.

Las Vegas Valley residents always come through in the pinch.

More than a dozen offered to open their homes to Burcu Uezel, a 20-year-old German woman who has an internship at the Fremont Hotel but had nowhere to live.

Hendrik Frobel, the woman's 20-year-old boyfriend, is coming here also to complete his country's required 13 months of social service at Candlelighters for Childhood Cancer. He has a place to stay, but that family had no room for Uezel.

After reading about her predicament in this column last week, 17 people called or e-mailed invitations to the couple offering help.

They included a retired Roman Catholic priest and a senior cataloger for the Clark County Library system.

"We were really surprised and happy when we saw all the e-mails we have got," Frobel and Uezel wrote in a reply to the library worker. "It might sound funny but first of all we did not really know what to do. All the offers sounded like really interesting and nice people in Las Vegas we would really like to meet."

Transportation -- or rather, Uezel's lack of it -- was the deciding factor. She will stay with Audrey and Chico Noriega, who live closest to downtown of those who offered places to stay.

Noriega is payroll director for Clark County Schools. Her husband is retired from the Air Force and has a civilian spot as dock chief for the F-16s at Nellis Air Force Base. His son is grown and is a North Las Vegas police officer, so the couple have no more children at home.

"I just thought we should do this, and so we did," Audrey Noriega said. "I didn't want any publicity or anything. Two people in my office were talking about it today (Tuesday), and I didn't say a word."

Noriega says she's not sure what motivated her to open her home to a stranger from a foreign country. But she and her husband have some friends with a huge ranch in Africa, whom they visit a couple of times a year.

"They've always got somebody's kid from somewhere in the world staying there, and I admire them. It brings them so much happiness," Noriega said. "Anything we can do to help a young person to get educated, helps us all."

The Rev. Bob Carey, a retired Roman Catholic priest, doesn't have e-mail. So Frobel called to thank him for his offer personally. Carey says not knowing anything about the young woman never gave him a moment's pause.

"I have a tendency to trust everybody," he said.

That would seem a rare quality in town where gated communities, private security patrols and calls for additional police officers are the order of the day. But at least 16 other people were right there with Carey.

"It is very nice to see how open and friendly the American people are. Friendly and willing to help," Frobel and Uezel said in the aforementioned e-mail they sent to the library worker.

Noriega says her family didn't have much money when she was growing up in Northern Nevada, but her mother gave whatever they had to anyone in need.

"If there was room for someone who needed a room, she gave it," Noriega said. "It's no big deal."

Generosity does come naturally to some people. Luckily for Uezel a fair number of those people live here in our valley.