James Gambrell delivers mail in Pittsburgh's Polish Hill neighborhood and, nearly every day, he knocks on the window of Lucille Zolkoski's house to check on her.

On Wednesday, he delivered a care package -- from him and 35 co-workers at the Oakland station of the U.S. Postal Service. As he carried five postal bins of food off the truck, Ms. Zolkoski buried her face in her hands and said, "I can't," and "Why me?"

"I want you to accept what my post office thinks about its customers," he said.

"We need to look after people like you," said Nancy Banaszewski, Mr. Gambrell's supervisor, hugging the diminutive woman whose mane of white hair was pulled back in a clasp.

"I was 3 years old when I started to cook," she said.

"Now you can cook some more," said Mr. Gambrell, smiling proudly.

Saying thank you in Polish, French and Greek, she said, "Oh, you are the sweetest. This should be about you, not me."

Mr. Gambrell, a mail carrier for 12 years, has had the route that includes the eastern tip of Polish Hill for two years. Most days, he stops to listen to Ms. Zolkoski tell him stories, share ideas and wax about her life, which began in Polish Hill and came full circle when in 1996 she moved into the home her father's parents kept.

"One day she was telling me that she only had bread and butter to eat," said Mr. Gambrell. "I was worried about her. It could be my mom or my aunt.

"I went to a neighbor who's a fireman and gave him some money and he put in some money and brought her food two weeks ago. He went to the store for her.

"I took the idea to my station and everybody gave. Everybody in my post office."

For a more sustainable solution, he and a co-worker are arranging for a social worker to sit down with her, find out what she needs and begin tapping into agencies such as the Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, he said.

Part of Ms. Zolkoski's challenge is that she does not drive and was unable to get to the store. A nun who used to visit and deliver groceries no longer has her car.

"I'm a walker," Ms. Zolkoski said defiantly, "but I couldn't get out" during the recent storms.

Ms. Zolkoski said she started working when she was 15 as an usherette at the Stanley Theater, Downtown. "I made 45 cents an hour." In later years, she was a secretary to the furniture buyer at Kaufmann's department store.

She said she felt an obligation to resume care of the family's home but that the upkeep is difficult. "When the men who installed my heater were here, they said they had to go outside to get warm," she said. She declined to give her age.

"I'm embarrassed to take this," she said. "I know other people are making sacrifices.

"Y'know what," she said to her postman. "God put certain people on this Earth for a reason."

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