GROW. RISE. TOGETHER.
assist. He took the lead, calling 911 and telling one roofer to flag down the approaching ambulance and gave the other one his water jug to give water to the stricken man. “His lips were blue, so I know it was a matter of minutes” before he could die, Howe said. “We basically kept him alive until the ambulance got there.” EMTs arrived and managed to revive the man, who fully recov- ered. Though the man lost his mem- ory of that day, he was apparently stung by insects and had an aller- gic reaction. The man was thankful when he talked to Howe later, and the city of Taunton gave him a cer- tificate of appreciation, but Howe doesn’t think of himself as a hero. “I just happened to be at the right place at the right time,” Howe said. “I reacted.” Vigilant Award Kyle Mailman of Wichita, KS Branch 201 Two-year carrier Kyle Mailman is helping Wichita, KS, with a dan- gerous gopher problem. Recently, construction of a bridge spanning the Arkansas River was causing gophers to move into a residential area near the bridge. The gophers dug long tunnels underground, and when they encountered gas lines, they often chewed through them, causing dangerous leaks, Mailman said. Delivering the mail on a route in that area in April, the Wichita Branch 201 member approached a recessed door of a home to put the mail in a door slot. “I’d heard a re- port in the area of people having gas leaks,” he said. When he reached this door, the odor was unmistak- able. “I about choked right then and there.” Mailman warned the woman who lived there. “I knocked on the door rather feverishly,” he said, and told her to call the authorities immediately. After experiencing the ill effects of breathing gas himself due to an unlit pilot light on a stove many years ago, Mailman could tell
that the woman showed the signs of gas poisoning. When the gas com- pany came to fix the outdoor leak, it also found a leak in a faulty valve of an indoor gas fireplace as well. “To me, it’s not really a big deal,” Mail- man said about his actions, which may have saved a life, “because I hope everyone would be out there helping each other.” The Partnership Award Earnest Twomley, David Correa, Heriberto Rodriguez and Daniel Weber of New York, NY Branch 36 New York, NY Branch 36 car- rier Earnest Twomley’s chance en- counter with a child on his route a decade ago led him to organize toy drives for needy children every Christmas. Seeing a mother he knew from his route emerging from a taxi with her three children, he noticed that one of the children, a little girl, was in distress. “She’s screaming in the middle of the street,” he recalled. “I went over there to see what the issue was because I have three kids myself.” He offered to help by delivering the little girl to her home. “I said, ‘Have you ever been de- livered to your apartment by a mail- man?’ And she just looked at me and started laughing. So, I picked her up, carried her up a couple of flights of stairs, put her on a couch, and that was it.” But then a neighbor who saw what he did told him the signifi- cance of his kind act. “One of the neighbors said, ‘That was a real nice thing you did.’ I said, ‘What? Stop a little girl from cry- ing?’ ” The neighbor told Twomley that the little girl had a brain tumor and was returning from New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center after a round of treatment. Wanting to do something more for the family, the next time he saw the mother while out on his route, he asked her for letters to Santa
The Postal Record 59 August 2024 This year they are busy collecting even more toys for PS 186X. “We have 800 kids with disabilities in the school where we’re going to fill the gymnasium up with toys and everything else for them,” he said. “What we usually do is get the toys and put them in a room. The kids Postal employees at several sta- tions in New York donate toys each year for the effort, each filling up a postal container with toys. Of course, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Santa Claus. A few years ago, after spotting fel- low Branch 36 carrier Daniel Weber growing a beard, Twomley hatched a plan, asking Weber to let it grow out until Christmas. “So he’s our official Santa Claus” each year, Twomley said. The group’s outreach has ex- panded far beyond that first family by serving children with disabilities in schools and needy children in women’s shelters. Last Christmas, the Better Angels provided gifts for 290 children at the New Hope Transitional Housing family shelter in the Bronx and for 153 kids at PS 186X Walter Damrosch School, a Bronx special education school. Claus from the children. He then asked some fellow carriers to help fulfill the wish list, and everyone pitched in. “So, picture a grown man going into the American Girl doll store and picking out the stuff that she wanted!” Twomley said. Twomley and some other carriers invited the family to get the pres- ents under the Christmas tree in the lobby of his station in Manhattan. Somehow a local TV news station heard about it, and when the story aired an idea was born. “The newscaster called us ‘the Better Angels.’ “That inspired Twomley and fellow Branch 36 members David Correa and Herib- erto Rodriguez along with postal employee Don Daggett to form a nonprofit group called the Better Angels of Human Nature to bring the spirit of that first generous toy drive to many more children.
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker