Flight attendant Mel Simmons was a giver: If an elderly passenger had lost her purse, Simmons would take up a midair collection to help her out; when a Wal-Mart cashier had to work on her birthday, Simmons bought her a seafood dinner. And when friend Kathy Holden brought her two dozen beaded bracelets from Turkey in January 2005, she did what came naturally–passed them out to patients and staff at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, where she was being treated for breast cancer. “She gave away everything she had,” says fellow flight attendant Pauline Alighieri.

Simmons lost her battle with the illness. She died at age 57 on July 18, 2005, at her home in tiffany bangles Rockland, Mass., leaving behind two grown children, Mark, 33, and Jessica, 29. But her friends never forgot her generosity. Many continued to request the bracelets after she died. So Alighieri and Holden, her coworkers from Delta Air Lines, thought, Why not pick up more, sell them in Simmons’ honor and raise money for cancer research? They flew to Istanbul later that month and bought 1,000 bracelets. “We figured we’d raise $5,000,” says Alighieri.

Call it karma. Friends of Mel, the nonprofit Alighieri and Holden founded, sold those bracelets within a month. (Although the original bracelets contained lead, the mistake has been corrected and new ones are lead free.) Today more than 250 volunteers help sell the bracelets through the Internet, hair salons, bakeries tiffany rings and other stores. The group has raised $2.5 million for research and equipment. “Mel was all about love, and that’s what these bracelets are,” says her sister Bernadette Ippolito. “They connect everyone.”

“We’re moving on with the project and hope to have a pre-Christmas opening,” said Faith Weiner, a spokeswoman with the Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop Supermarket Company.

The gas station is being built on a little more than half an acre where an auto repair silver rings shop and gas station used to be at 155 Boston Post Road, across from Waterford Town Hall, near the intersection with Vivian Street.

The new location, which is around the corner from the Stop & Shop Supermarket located at the intersection of Boston Post Road and Clark Lane, will feature five fuel pumps with 10 nozzles under a canopy and a kiosk for the attendant, according to the application, which was approved in March.

On Thursday, construction workers were paving the front of the site, while backhoes dug to silver bracelets the rear of the property.

When complete, the facility will bring to 55 the total number of Stop & Shop supermarkets that feature gas stations either on or near the property, the application states. Stores in East Lyme and Montville already have both.

The supermarket will supply motor oil, gum, cigarettes, windshield washer fluid and other silver cufflinks items at the kiosk on a daily basis. Hours will be 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays, according to the application.

p.daddona@theday.com