Life after COVID-19: Recovered New Yorkers find hope in helping others
On a drizzly May day in New York City, Jim Burke lugs a cart of groceries through his Jackson Heights neighborhood. He isn’t headed home. The goods are for neighbors.
He pauses on the sidewalk in his mask and gloves. “It’s almost kind of selfish,” he says, to get joy out of giving.
Earlier this spring, Mr. Burke spent 10 days struggling alone in his apartment with COVID-19. He’d muster all his might to get up and shave, then collapse back into bed for the rest of the day, feeling worse than ever before in his life.
Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.
Since mid-April, he’s found the strength to drop off bags of donated groceries for Covid Care Neighbor Network, a mutual aid group based in Queens. Used to busy days volunteering as a transportation and LGBTQ activist, he’d been itching to rejoin community service
