FOXBORO

She was just 10, but Rose Shatz had already been at work trying to make the world a better place before her life was cut tragically short Saturday when she was struck by a truck while riding her bike near her home.

"Rose was kind, happy, sunny and generous" said her grandmother, Eunice Shatz. "She held her arms out to the world."

The daughter of Clifford Shatz and Joan Block, Rose loved to help serve meals to homeless men in a Boston shelter, an ongoing effort through Temple Beth David in Canton, where she also sang in the choir, her family said.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she helped her father load a pickup truck with donated goods to bring to victims in Gulfport, Miss. Unable to accompany him on that five-day trek, she packed her knapsack with crayons, notepads and a teddy bear, bought with her own allowance money, then insisted he hand-deliver the package to a child, any child, struggling in the aftermath of the devastating hurricane, her father said.

Because to Rosie, as she was known to friends and family, it was the individual that matters most.

Absorbing her family's social conscience, she enjoyed a talk Gov.-elect Deval Patrick once gave at Foxboro's Boyden Library. One month ago today, the night he was elected governor, she e-mailed him an invitation to visit her school, Burrell Elementary.

And just two weeks before she was fatally injured when she was hit by a dump truck near her Willow Street home, she penned an essay on a paper cutout Star of David. It was a meditation on the plight of the nation of Israel, a wish to help people know that Jews are good people, and a fourth-grader's humble admission about the quest for peace: "I do not think I can accomplish this task myself."

She made an unforgettable start - reading her books and working on her projects with her parents in her home on the Foxboro-Sharon border; at home in the classroom of her teacher, Karen Washburn, who keeps a menagerie of small animals for the children to help with; at home in Foxboro, a town she truly loved and convinced her parents to remain in because Foxboro, though not their original home, was hers since her birth on Oct. 28, 1996.

"She was so good, and we miss her so terribly" said her heart-broken father, as he held his wife's hand at their dining room table Tuesday afternoon.

Rose loved the town's Founders Day parade and fireworks. One year, she rode on a firetruck in the parade. She was proud to be pictured last year in the local pape, the Foxboro Reporter, with her classmates and principal, Michele McCarthy, on the "Burrell Luau" float.

She loved the family's annual New Year's Day party, and always would make her special punch.

Rose had a gift for making each of her friends feel like her best friend, said John Switlekowski of Sharon, whose daughter was close with Rose.

Proud of her religion, Rose wished people were more accepting of differences, her mom said. And Rose didn't like it when children were teased for any reason, and would speak up for the victim, her father said. "Part of the Jewish ethic is to not just think of other people, but do for others" her dad said.

"Repair the world" her mother said, adding that during one of the last mom-and-daughter bedtime talks they ever had, Rose was struggling with why kids would want to hurt one another's feelings.

Today, the couple's entire world lies torn.

It was her father who held her during the final moments of her life.

"This has to be the worst, the day she died in my arms," Shatz said. "She was just the sweetest, kindest, most gentle little girl and she got cut down tragically way before her time."

The cause of the Saturday afternoon accident remains under investigation. The truck driver, Aaron Fine, 33, an off-duty Mansfield police officer, has been cited for lacking the proper driver's license - a Class B.

Although the couple asked the media to respect their privacy, they decided to reach out through the local press in gratitude to the community.

Gratitude for the town Rose grew up in, for the heart and professionalism of police officers and firefighter-paramedics, and for the outpouring of compassion from townspeople since then.

"I wanted Rose to have a stable childhood in a town where people knew each other and small-town values, though that might sound corny," Shatz said. "We feel grateful to the town for providing that nurturing environment. We'll always feel grateful to the town."

"She was a wonderful, vivacious little girl who had lots and lots of friends and liked to do extra work" said Jan Norton, acting school superintendent.

Now the town is grieving for a family who made a difference.

Strangers have delivered food and notes of sympathy to the house.

"The police and fire departments extended themselves in the kindest imaginable ways," Shatz said.

He said Officer Scott Austin, in particular, remained with the couple for hours at Caritas Norwood Hospital, and has been protective of their privacy.

"When it mattered the most, they were there," Shatz said. "Just like one father to another. No attitude. Not like being the policeman, but a father, a man, a human being."

A memorial service for Rose was held Wednesday at Temple Beth David. The burial was to be private. Flags were flown at halfstaff at the Foxboro school that day. A memorial to Rose will be designed and placed at the school.

"The town brought so much to Rose, a gift we can never repay or express," her dad said. "Rose had a great life. No pain, no evil. The devil did not know her name, and it was where she grew up that made it so."