A cold planet where the inhabitants don't care. Or a wondrous place where kindness matters.

Sandra Walerski, a Trainer woman who was the subject of an April 8 article in The Inquirer about the struggles of the working poor, is going with the latter characterization these days.

"The love people share is amazing," Walerski said the other day as she cried quietly. "I'm overwhelmed."

Since publication of the article about how Walerski shops for her family with $25 to $45 a week, readers from as far away as California, Arizona and Florida contacted the paper with, as of Tuesday evening, 79 e-mails and 45 phone calls.

All asked how they could help Walerski, 47, an unemployed cancer patient with four children whose carpenter husband makes $28,800 annually.

"I believe we're all connected in the universe," said Emma Lee, a 64-year-old retired secretary from the Northeast who will be sending Walerski some hard-earned cash. "We're brothers and sisters who have to look out for each other."

Many benefactors requested anonymity. One person is offering Walerski $100 a month for groceries. Another said he'd look into paying the family's electric bill, which is $1,500 in arrears.

A surgeon volunteered to consult with Walerski about the tumor in her brain, which was diagnosed as malignant after the article ran. A local foundation wanted to know where it could send a check. Officials at Delaware County Community College, which Walerski's 20-year-old son, Marc, attends, said they were considering giving him an academic scholarship.

The offers continued. Reading that the family hasn't been able to buy heating oil in three years, a man said he'd work to see that the family will be warm for a change next winter.

Seniors living on fixed incomes promised to send what dollars they could.

Many people who read that Walerski loves roast beef but can't afford it are sending the family pounds and pounds of meat, along with grocery-store gift cards.

And Bill Shaner, chief executive officer of Save-a-Lot - the St. Louis-based discount grocery chain where Walerski shops - said Tuesday that he'd be sending the family gift cards as well.

Themselves the victims of hard times, many readers who are donating food or money to the family indicated that they were somehow touched by Walerski, who is considered working poor. Social scientists generally define the working poor as families with one or more workers making no more than twice the poverty level.

"Never once did she ask for anything," said Janet Herre, 55, of Willow Grove, a former computer programmer who lost her job to downsizing.

"I saw compassion and strength in her, and I was in awe of that. She has a smile on her face. She doesn't think she's poor.

"The Walerskis are the kind of people that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should meet to understand who the working poor are."

In fact, one presidential candidate did make mention of Walerski. Speaking Tuesday at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain told of "a woman in the town of Trainer" who "captured the feeling of many when she described what it's like to work and save for years, and, at the age of 47, still struggle for the basics of life. The family has had medical problems, and as she puts it: 'Trust me, no one wants to be in our shoes. And lots of people are just a sick husband away from where we are.'

"For citizens like these, doing their best to keep promises and meet obligations, there is no comfort knowing their problems are common and their worries are shared."

Walerski's story reminded one reader of the allegory of the little girl at the beach who picks up one of hundreds of washed-up starfish and tosses it back into the sea.

"But there are so many, how could saving one matter?" an adult asks the child.

"It matters to that one," the child replies.

"People are basically good, but have so many burdens, they don't have the chance to show kindness," said Walerski, who is now losing her hair because of treatments for the cancer, which has spread to her brain from one of her breasts. "I feel a little bit funny taking money from people. But I guess they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't want to."

Before the article ran, Walerski's sister was planning a beer-bash benefit in a hall in Marcus Hook, Delaware County, to help the family.

A bank account had been set up for donations from friends. Now that account is growing exponentially with hundreds of dollars of contributions from people determined to help the Walerski family.

"Maybe we can feed the people who come with all of that roast beef I'm getting," Walerski said.

If she has surplus food, Walerski added, she will donate some of it to the Bernardine Center in Chester, a nonprofit charitable facility that Walerski sometimes turned to for food in the past.

While Walerski's story generated goodwill, it also inspired some griping.

Denigrating comments about the Walerskis were posted following the online version of the family's story.

"Sell the house and find a cheaper apartment," one person wrote. "It doesn't sound like things are that bad for this family."

"Don't have so many kids," another wrote.

The carping upset a social-service worker who knows the family and its continuing plight.

"Oh, my God, that disgusted me," said Marylou Laboy, food-pantry manager at the Bernardine Center.

Walerski sounded a charitable note.

"I just hope those people are all blessed and never have to go through what I went through in life," she said.

Ultimately, what we should learn from the Walerskis is that many of us lead relatively comfortable lives, and should work to ease the suffering of others, said Karen Jendrzejewski, 41, an interior designer from Browns Mills, Burlington County, who will be contributing to the family.

"You may have a bad day once in a while, but, my God, this woman has all this stuff she's dealing with at once," Jendrzejewski said. "You start looking at your own life and say, 'I'm OK. How can I help someone like her?' "