Francis Ford Jr. recently got a new smartphone as a Christmas reward from his Big Brother.

“For all of those A’s and B’s,” said his mother, Lauretta.

Frankie started thinking about an old friend, someone who used to play for the Celtics and has since changed his uniform a few times. Someone, he wasn’t entirely sure, who would remember reaching out to a dejected nine-year-old with a crushing need for encouragement.

Frankie went on Instagram in an attempt to reconnect, and the response from Evan Turner was immediate.

“Frankiiiieeeee.”

As if they had seen each other yesterday, instead of four years ago, when Turner, during a junior Celtics clinic at Madison Park High School, noticed that one kid hadn’t joined the group. He was bigger than the others, with “that orange hair,” in Turner’s recollection.

“He was sitting cross-legged, Indian-style, low posture, slumped, down, down to the world. It was tough,” said Turner, who was sent from Atlanta to Minnesota earlier this week as part of a larger four-team trade.

“We were all playing and everything and I saw this kid with the orange hair sitting in the corner with his head down, and I went over and said ‘come play.’ He told me something had happened with his family not long before that and he was down. I talked to him for a bit and made him feel comfortable. I asked him to come play on my team and play basketball, have fun.

“Luckily he started being able to get over it, and get past the trauma he was facing in the real world and be a kid as he should. No one should have to go through that. I felt bad, because the kid obviously wasn’t having his best day.”

Frankie had just lost his father and an uncle — Lauretta’s twin brother Ralph Brennan — over the previous three months. The last place he wanted to be was a basketball clinic. But at Turner’s urging, he joined the group, and was later invited by Turner to the Celtics’ practice facility in Waltham, where they shot baskets and went on a tour of the facility. Turner ordered out for food, and Frankie had a cheeseburger.

“Not just a gym, it was a workout place, there was an ice bath, he took me everywhere, the locker room,” said Frankie. “Talked about basketball, what I wanted for my birthday. I don’t even know what I wanted, probably some Legos or something.”

Not long after, Turner was on the Garden floor approximately five minutes before tip-off when he spotted Dave Hoffman, the Celtics’ vice president of community engagement, and the team’s chief liaison with Doc Wayne Youth Services, an organization that serves at-risk youth through sports and therapy. The sight of Hoffman was Turner’s reminder.

“Hey, remember that kid Frankie?” Turner said as he headed toward the huddle. “His birthday is coming up. Make sure we do something for him.”

Lauretta was in line at a market across from their home in the Old Colony Housing Project in South Boston when she got an excited call from Frankie. A package of Celtics gear had arrived, along with a letter and autographed photo from Turner, in addition to something even more joyful. Turner wanted to treat Frankie and five of his friends to a night out, first at a movie at the Loews Cinema next to Boston Common, and then dinner at Applebee’s in South Bay.

Kelsey Keena from Celtics community engagement delivered the package to Rebekah Roulier, Doc Wayne’s chief operating officer, who has known Lauretta and Frankie since he was five.

“Kelsey just said make sure he keeps his head up, and make sure he keeps going,” she said.

Turner’s handwritten letter put it another way.

“I hope this birthday is one you’ll truly enjoy and always remember. I also hope the staff at Applebee’s sings a great birthday tune for you, as well!!

Stay blessed,

Evan

P.S. Pick up a book and read!!”

Tough times

Halloween, 2015, and the world went sideways. Francis Ford Sr. died of a heart attack that morning, as Lauretta Brennan found out when two Boston police officers showed up at her job, in the office at Old Colony’s Joseph Tierney Learning Center.

She made an impossible vow — to make Frankie’s Halloween normal. She didn’t pull him out of school. Lauretta then took him out trick or treating. Somewhere along the route Frankie said he felt like donating his candy to kids who might appreciate it more.

And then in January her twin brother Ralph — Uncle Ralphie to Frankie — died of a heroin overdose at the age of 38.

“The second brother I lost to heroin,” said Lauretta, who understands better than anyone the perils of raising a child in a place like Old Colony — ground zero in the nation’s opioid epidemic. “There’s a lot of drug abuse around here, you know?”

Lauretta forges ahead now with a mission statement leveled at her son: “Basketball and school instead of drugs.”

She works for the Gavin Foundation, which offers support services to families impacted by drug abuse. As on that Halloween night four years ago, her goal is to bring normalcy to Frankie’s life.

“He’s persevered because we try to make his life as stable as possible,” said Lauretta. “We do it with the help of Doc Wayne, and Big Brother.”

It was Rob Staub, Frankie’s Big Brother, who challenged the 13-year-old to get good grades in exchange for a Christmas gift smartphone. Roulier, a licensed mental health counselor and former Boston University soccer player and track athlete, has provided therapy to Lauretta and Frankie over the years. Her organization, Doc Wayne, regularly partners with the Celtics in their junior basketball events.

One recent night, with Frankie sitting on the other side of a table in the family’s apartment, Roulier explained the significance of Turner’s attention.

“I think it’s pretty special that you still remember this, that you were that young and even two or three years later it’s something you still reference,” she said to Frankie. “And someone of that stature in the sports world looked at you and thought you were pretty awesome.”

Earlier this month, Frankie reached back.

“I wanted to tell him how thankful I was for doing that, so I hit him up on Instagram,” he said. “Thank you, I’m playing basketball now, if you want to come to one of my games or something. He was like, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘Frankie, what’s up?’ I was surprised.

“It’s crazy. You think of this stereotype of big celebrities or basketball players — they’ll do anything for attention to get on the news or something. I’m glad he wasn’t like that. That was nice. He also followed me.”

Pay it forward

At 6-foot-2, Frankie is a massive 13-year-old. So of course he plays center for Gate of Heaven, his CYO basketball team.

“He was big back then,” recalled Turner, who has business in Boston once the season ends, and hopes to honor Frankie’s invitation and attend a game.

“I don’t want to take credit. I’m glad he remembers. But one thing I always do — take flowers from a certain place and grow them somewhere else,” he said. “One of my high school coaches used to drive me home, and I said I appreciate it, but I don’t have any money to give you. And he said if you can help somebody else, make sure you help somebody else. I’m glad and I hope he took something from it. I’m sure he did, because he’s a good, soulful kid. If he remembers that it says a lot about him in general.”

Turner learned a lot from his youth and high school coaches in Chicago that he now practices in life. He understands the meaning of a comped night at Applebee’s to a kid who doesn’t have money. That was him.

“Growing up, I remember a certain coach drove me home, and one of my mentors pretty much became my dad,” said Turner. “One thing he told me was it’s always OK to do the right thing. To be a 15- or 16-year-old it may not sound that simple, but you don’t have to go out and be what people think you should be, whether you’re an athlete or a jerk or whatever.

“Just do the right thing, be the right person and walk the right path and I had someone who would always look out for me. He was a person I could talk to, and he told me when things are caving in on you, go out and make somebody else smile. You’re blessed, you have a beautiful life, and things are never as hard as you think. Go knock on somebody else’s door and tell them your problems, they might trade their problems for yours.”

Or maybe, as Francis Ford Jr. taught Turner, it often doesn’t take more than the turn of a head and some outreach to lift someone else’s spirit.

“Not saying I blessed him, but I made sure he had a good day and a memorable birthday,” said Turner. “I don’t think people comprehend that you have to be nice to someone like that, because you don’t know the last time someone made them feel special. There’s some moments I feel that way, know what I’m saying? That’s just life.”