From sponsoring youth teams, to helping at the James L. Maher Garden Center to his annual Christmas lights display, the owner of R&R Construction made a significant impact on the community.

NEWPORT — Each year around Christmastime, Ronald “Mac” MacDonald would enter the former Benny’s location on West Main Road in Middletown and ask to see the list of layaway purchases.

Then he would pay off the balances.

Some of the people he knew. Others he didn’t. It was simply his way of making sure a great holiday was had by all.

“That’s just the type of person he was,” said Keith MacDonald, the oldest of Ronald’s three boys. “He would never want the recognition.”

MacDonald, the owner of R&R Construction and a staple on the local sports scene, died Sunday at age 78.

Talk to people who knew him well, and kindness and generosity are the two words that keep popping up. Through his business, he sponsored a number of area baseball teams, including two in the Sunset League. He stepped forward when the league — which celebrated its 100th birthday this year — was on the cusp of extinction.

“There was a point where it was going to fold, and he said, ‘I don’t want it to fold,’” said Dom Coro, manager of the R&R Construction team and a family friend. “The Sunset League wouldn’t be going without Ron MacDonald.”

Keith MacDonald said during his youth, his father worked long hours and rarely saw his boys. When Ronald finally attended one of Keith’s Little League games, he remarked to his wife Carol that Keith’s coach didn’t know what he was doing.

“At least they’re out there doing it,” Keith recalled his mother saying. “At that point, he decided he was going to start his own business — R&R Construction — and said, ‘I’m going to help kids.’ He’s the type of person where if you came to him with a problem, he would help in any way he could.”

And he did it without much fanfare. When Portsmouth High School needed football uniforms years back, MacDonald was there. “Just don’t tell people where you got the money from,” MacDonald, a proud Rogers High School graduate, said.

MacDonald grew up in Newport and lived in the city his entire life with the exception of a few years spent in Florida as a teenager. His mother died of cancer when he was in high school, and Keith said he “didn’t get to do what he really wanted to do in sports.”

That’s why he got so much joy in seeing others compete.

When he was coaching the R&R Construction American Legion team decades ago, the drinking age was 18. Previously, players would bring a six-pack to games, but MacDonald put an end to that. Instead, he started his own tradition — postgame ice cream.

“When he would go visit kids on the mound, he wouldn’t talk Xs and Os,” Keith MacDonald said. “He knew the kids had enough pressure on them already. So he would say, ‘Guys, we haven’t talked about where we’re getting ice cream after the game.’”

Melissa Turner, who grew up on Morgan Street, around the corner from the MacDonald house on Harrison Avenue, said the MacDonalds were like an “extended family” for her and her five siblings. “We didn’t knock,” she said.

Turner’s mother, Pat Silveria, was a single mom raising the six children and didn’t have the money to buy hockey equipment for brothers Ken and Bob. Not only did MacDonald step in to buy the boys the equipment they needed, he also made sure they had rides to practices and games.

“He did all of the things she wasn’t able to do,” Turner said.

Someone once told MacDonald, “With all of the money you spend sponsoring these teams, you could be a millionaire.” He replied, “I’m a millionaire in my own right for taking care of these kids.”

And it wasn’t just in sports. MacDonald was a big supporter of the James L. Maher Garden Center, said Lori Scionti, the former director of horticulture program at the center.

MacDonald would come in often with his dogs and greet clients at the center that specializes in helping people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“He fell in love with the people we supported,” said Scionti, who grew emotional as she spoke. “He spent all kinds of time telling clients how special they were. He wanted people to feel happy.”

When a panel fell down from a greenhouse, or when a window needed replacement, or when a bench broke, MacDonald pulled men from another R&R Construction job and sent them to the garden center to fix what needed fixing.

“And he didn’t want anything in return,” Scionti said. “He was just our guardian angel.”

It was at the house on Harrison Avenue where MacDonald began his yearly Christmas lights display. When the family moved to Ellery Road in the 1990s, those displays only got bigger.

“The day after Christmas, he was already sketching out the next year,” Keith said. “He took so much pride in sitting and watching the kids go through the display.”

Keith recalled one family watching from the street and not wanting to go on the lawn. “We don’t want to ruin the grass,” Keith recalled members of the family saying. “My father said, ‘It’s just grass. Let the kids go in and have a good time.’ That’s what it was all about.”

Behind it all, behind all the games and practices, the teams and the sponsorships, the lights and displays, there was Carol, his loving wife of 56 years.

“She was the real rock behind everything,” Keith said. “She did all the dirty work, folding and washing uniforms, countless roster sheets to be typed and mailed. She was the driving force that helped my father do everything.”

Keith said even though his father is gone, nothing will change. The baseball teams will continue to have a sponsor, and the holiday displays will shimmer come December.

“It will carry on, believe me,” he said.

sbarrett@newportri.com