Letter Carrier Odalis Penn is known for going out of her way to check on older customers on her route in Warren, RI, and to pitch in with helpful tasks during her breaks.
That’s what Penn was doing recently when she brought in a customer’s garbage cans as she delivered mail. Unusually, though, Penn didn’t get a reply when she called out to the woman, nor did she hear anything when she returned the next day and saw the mail where she’d left it.
Penn sought out a neighbor, who called the woman’s daughter. Eventually emergency responders were contacted, and they discovered that the woman had fallen in her bedroom.
The customer was hospitalized and died several days later, and Penn’s supervisor credits her with giving the woman’s family members a chance to be with her at the end of her life.