Everyone loves a parade — especially when it’s just for you.
Matthew Watkins, a 17-year-old leukemia patient in Clay, NY, was honored with a caravan of Postal Service trucks this week after returning home from a lengthy hospital stay.
Twenty-five trucks from the Liverpool, NY, Post Office’s Bayberry Station drove past Matthew’s home. Postmaster Lindsey Hicks led the parade.
“I am extremely grateful and touched. He was very excited and talked about it all night,” Matthew’s mother Jennifer told WFRG-FM.
Matthew dreams of becoming a letter carrier and enjoys counting LLVs at Bayberry Station. He watched the parade while wearing a Postal Service hat and shirt — gifts he received from retired letter carriers after his diagnosis.
Even in his sickest hours at the hospital, Matthew continued to wear his USPS shirts with pride every day, WSYR-TV reported.
The Postal Inspection Service helped coordinate the logistics for Matthew’s parade with help from the Moyers Corners Fire Department, whose trucks also participated.
Bayberry Station employees were eager to participate, Northeast Area Communications Manager Maureen Marion told Syracuse.com.
“We wanted to give him a bump up. Actually, he gives us more of a bump up than we gave him,” she said.
