HANSON — Saturday, July 9 marked their fifth wedding anniversary, and despite the broken bones and bruises from a recent motorcycle crash, they were celebrating the gift of life.

Dave and Heather Hanlon of Hanson face a long road of recovery following a motorcycle crash six weeks ago.

Friends of the couple are planning a benefit from 1-6 p.m., Sunday, July 31 at the Hanson Athletic Association pavilion, 171 Reed St., Hanson to aid in financial burdens as they recoup. The event will be held rain or shine.

Their lives were turned upside down while they were stopped in traffic waiting for a left turn on South Meadow Road in Plymouth May 28. They were hit from behind by a car reportedly traveling  40 m.p.h. The driver never hit the brakes before pushing the couple into the car in front of them.   

The experienced riders often took an open air spin on a pleasant day — a passion and hobby, which they now have had taken away, said Hanlon.

The Harley Davidson Heritage soft tail they were riding was turned into a heap of metal at the crash scene.

“Heather saw the car coming behind us in the side mirror and said, ‘Oh (expletive)”, said Hanlon.

Moments later Dave was lying on the opposite side of the road in the lane of oncoming traffic. He was bleeding heavily from his head, ejected off the bike and landing 35 feet from Heather who had stayed on the bike. She fractured her pelvis in three places, among numerous other injuries.

Hanlon has lived in town for 46 years and has worked for the Hanson Highway Department for the past 19 years and is also currently the Hanson Tree Warden for the next three years. He is also a former call firefighter.

Heather is originally from Freetown and has called Hanson home for approximately 10 years. The couple has five children between them, two are in their 20s.

Hanlon’s eldest daughter Stephanie, 24, is a nurse and lives in Hanson. Courtney, 20, is stationed in Hawaii in the Army. Her planned leave to come home was the day of their bike accident.

“My first visit with her was at the hospital. She came up to see us there,” said Hanlon, his voice reflected disappointment that her holiday was marred by negative circumstances.

Things have been in disarray but the pair is making the best of their circumstances. He will be seeing an orthopedist for his healing broken elbow. For now he is caring for his wife. She has a visiting nurse, occupational and physical therapist making visits to the house.

A difficult part of Heather’s healing is the immobility. Her reconstruction included screws, wires and plates to rebuild her pelvis. She is now in a wheelchair restricted to sitting or lying in bed non-weight bearing position for the next three months. However, the once active bowler and avid rider were not promised a full recovery.

Taking the healing one step at a time Heather is hopeful she will not have further complications. They look forward to their walks again in the Burrage Wildlife area behind their home.

With caring friends and fellow American Legion riders they are also members at the Hanson Athletic Association. Hanlon who has 30 years’ experience riding expressed appreciation of all who have reached out to assist them in the last weeks.

The accident, by chance, happened in front of a house where there were fellow motorcycle riders. After hearing the crash they raced to assist until first responders arrived.

“The people were great. They held Heather’s head in place to keep her still … a man gave me a T-shirt and held it to my head, “said Hanlon.

The upcoming benefit, which Hanlon said he is humbled by, was a gesture by local friends, members at the Hanson AA and fellow riders who have helped the couple stay positive and optimistic.

The organizers of the benefit hope to offset medical expenses for the pair following stays at the trauma center at the South Shore Hospital where he stayed for two nights. Heather was transported to Boston to Brigham and Women’s Hospital where she had surgery on June 1, remaining there until June 8 when she was moved to Braintree Rehabilitation.   After rehabbing she arrived home on June 16.

Seeing her in pain has not been easy, he said.

“We can’t enjoy our walks, we can no longer enjoy the motorcycle.  That has been taken away from us. She says she will never get on another motorcycle because of the accident,” he said.

The couple has laid tracks all over the New England states and most of Cape Cod. Two of their favorite places are Laconia, N.H and Newport, R.I.

Riding in the car provokes anxiety because the last thing she saw was the bike coming up behind them, he said.

HANSON — Look up the phrase “marketing quotes” on the Internet and what you get is a lot of droll observations on the cynicism of selling product.

That’s not what Tim Johnson is all about, but he is using the skills he learned as a marketing major, combined with his own experiences in the Peace Corps to bring young people into church — specifically, the First Congregational Church in Hanson.

“The way somebody put it recently was ‘Pastors are Jesus’ marketers,’” Johnson said.

He has been hired by the Rev. Peter Smith as the church’s youth and families ministries coordinator. A graduate of Stonehill College, Johnson, 24, is now organizing youth events and other church programs while preparing to study at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Mass. It is the same seminary from which Smith graduated.

While Johnson grew up in Thomaston, Conn., and knew Smith from his time as pastor in that town, Johnson has earned this job while on the job, as a counselor at summer camp.

“I had seen Tim work with youth at a summer camp and knew that he had a genuine interest in connecting young people with the God who made them and loves them,” Smith said. He added that Johnson’s “experience in persevering in ventures where he was on his own in unfamiliar circumstances” in both the Peace Corps and on a 1,400- mile solo bicycle trip from Connecticut to Florida also recommended him highly for the job.

“I do a good amount of marketing for the church and the things I’m trying to put on with the church,” Johnson said on a recent afternoon in the church library. “I put on events pretty much every month and market them online, but a lot of [it] is just calling people and asking if they’d like to come.”

While that kind of marketing is not precisely what his job description entails, it has been a natural avenue for him as he works to connect with the congregation’s youth as part of his outreach mission to youth and families.

He uses the Internet to advertise programs such as a July 14 yard games tournament on the parsonage lawn and a recent excursion to Scituate for a beach cookout.

He also facilitates a Bible study group, which has been reading “The Case for Faith,” by Lee Strobel, an agnostic investigative journalist for The Chicago Tribune who found faith while trying to debunk it.

“He’s a cool example of how a very critical, skeptical view of Christianity can actually turn around when you look at it,” Johnson said. “You don’t have to come into the church and abandon all logic. That’s the most important thing I want to get across to people  — that was my biggest worry about going into ministry.”

While he’s still trying to figure out a definitive career path, which he calls one of the blessings of being a millennial, it definitely includes the ministry.

“A lot of us will have three or four different careers,” he said. “Mine might be ministry and marketing and economics.” But right now he’s leaning toward marketing as he tries out church work such as and gets to know a new community.

He’s used to being new in town.

“I feel very new — just in how much I know and my personal relationships with people here,” he said. “But I feel very comfortable. People here are so welcoming.”

Johnson said he has already been invited to Sunday lunches by several church members, an extension of welcome to a new neighbor.

“In that sense I feel like I’ve been here a long time,” he said. “But I want to serve this church well and in order to do that I need to have a more comprehensive knowledge of the whole town.”

He has yet to find his way to the Commuter Rail station on the first try.

Johnson has done one presentation to introduce himself to the church, but much of that centered on Senegal — and he said he’d like to do a more formalized program on his Peace Corps work.

For 18 months he lived and worked for the Peace Corps in Mboro, Senegal on a two-year mission to help with small business consulting in an economic climate not conducive to such theories.

“In order to be effectively work there you had to, more or less, forget what you were taught in business school,” he said. “Business in Senegal is more of a social endeavor. It’s more about just having enough money to get by and, if you are doing all those American business things, you are essentially stealing from your neighbor.”

But he fell in love with the people.

“I had always wanted to join the Peace Corps,” he said. “That was a life-long goal since I was in about middle school.”

A smattering of French under his belt and an affinity for West Africa in his heart helped land him in Senegal, which is both of those things, as he puts it.

“The friendships were more valuable than anything,” he said of the Peace Corps experience. Some of his new Senagalese friends now connect with him on Facebook. An ocean is not insurmountable in a digital age.

HANSON — Expansion may not be good for one’s waistline, but for business it’s an indication of a healthy bottom line. When an expansion offers additional services that complements the main business, so much the better.

Personal Trainer and Nutritionist Phil Johnson, owner of Just For You Personal Training, 1000 Main St., Hanson has undertaken just such an expansion.

Last month, he and his wife LaToya opened the doors of the Just For You Nutrition Store in a space once occupied by Attic Fanatic’s display studio in the same building.

Just For You Personal Training has been in business since December 2013, also intended to help expand the business Johnson began in 2010 in Hanover and then Halifax, and it seemed to create a need for the nutrition store almost immediately.

“I just decided to do it because there was nothing like this in the area,” Phil said. “My clients kept asking what they should have, what they should eat. They’d always have to go other places at long distances, so I thought, ‘Let’s go for it.’”

Clients can frequently be overheard comparing notes on items they’ve tried from the nutrition store as they go through pre-workout warm ups in the gym.

LaToya helped her husband put the store together as a kind of convenience store for the health-conscious — and they’ve benefited from strong word-of-mouth and Facebook recommendations.

“It seems every week, more and more people find out about us and come,” she said.

As if on cue, a woman who lives in Avon came into the store looking for Halo Top low-calorie/high protein ice cream.

“It seems like everyone wants that,” LaToya said.

“They’re talking about it a lot at Weight Watchers,” the woman said, noting a serving is only four points on the diet program’s scale based on the nutrient content of foods.

The Johnsons’ market research took them to other health food stores in the area and through countless Internet sites as well as customer requests.

“Phil knew more than me with the nutrition end, because he took classes on nutrition,” LaToya said. “I knew some, but doing the store, I’ve learned a lot more.”

Halo Top was one of the brand names and general food categories customers have been requesting, LaToya said. The dairy-based ice cream is low-fat — only 240 calories per pint — with 24 grams of protein and is organic. It contains no artificial softeners to make it seem creamier (it doesn’t need them), and as a result melts slower.

They also carry non-dairy ice cream such as Coconut Bliss, made with coconut milk, and Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy, made with almond milk.

There are several brands that shoppers at grocery and specialty food stores will recognize, too: Anna’s Swedish Thins cookies, Stacy’s pita chips, Weetabix cereal, Kind health bars, Envirokids cereals, Hodgson’s Mill, Bob’s Red Mill, Simply Asia and Thai Kitchen prepared foods. Nut-free, organic, Indian vegetarian and gluten-free foods are also available.

“There’s a lot of stuff here that they can just grab and warm it up in the microwave or something,” LaToya said. “Some of the stuff you can find in the other stores but a lot of it, you can’t.”

The idea is a convenient way of finding a healthy item you want without having to search through a large grocery store for it.

“You can just come in and you know whatever you’re getting is going to be good for you,” she said.

The aim of the store has always been to carry all different kinds of nutritional supplements and healthy foods.

“We started with the proteins and we did a range of them, and then added the foods,” she said. “We even ended up getting spices.”