FINEST GESTURE
Qns. cop sees woman with nothing, starts aid drive
A QUEENS COP with a heart of gold has become the silver lining for a robbery victim with next to nothing in her home.
Police Officer Danny Alvarez recently started a campaign to put food and furnishings in the apartment of 74-year-old mugging victim Adelia Rivera when he saw her empty, unplugged refrigerator.
“Seeing her refrigerator unplugged ... that was it,” the 110th Precinct crime prevention officer said about a recent visit to Rivera’s Elmhurst apartment.
At first, the visit was routine — just a follow-up with a crime victim. Then he saw how Rivera was living.
“I asked her what she was eating and she said she didn’t have any food, she goes to the local church for donations,” Alvarez said Saturday. “She was living in an apartment with no money or anything and on top of that, she gets robbed. It’s sad.”
Alvarez and his partner, Police Officer Anthony DiBartello, quickly learned that Rivera had next to nothing in her sparse apartment — basically just the clothes on her back.
Within a few hours, the 16-year NYPD veteran had put together a grassroots donation drive with a neighborhood furniture store and food from the Corona Flea Market.
The officers proudly brought the supplies to Rivera this week, which included a bed, 20 pairs of socks, clothes and a cell phone.
“The first thing we did was set up the refrigerator and plug it in,” he said. “Now its full of food and cases of water.”
“We still have more stuff for her,” the officer said. “I can’t take the whole credit. The community here is very friendly. All they need is a reason and they are able to give something.”
Alvarez’s fellow officers recorded his generosity and wrote about his good deeds on social media.
“He found a way to lift her spirits while giving her a better quality of life,” Captain Nicola Ventre, the commanding officer of the 110th Precinct, said on Facebook.
Rivera was robbed and thrown to the ground on Feb. 2 as she left a post office. She never went to the police, but had to report the crime to get a new Medicaid card.
Now she has a whole new set of friends, she said.
“In the morning and the afternoon, they were here constantly, every day, twice a day,” said Rivera. “I’m very grateful that they are very kind, all of them.”