Posted Thursday, April 16, 2020 7:11 pm

It’s the least we can do to show our appreciation for their selflessness and dedication in this war against corona.” Dr. Zodelia Williams, 3D’s Community Empowerment Center Support Local Journalism The coronavirus crisis is threatening many of the important businesses you rely on every day, but don't let it take away your source for local news. Now more than ever, we need your help to ensure nothing but the best in hyperlocal community journalism comes straight to you. Consider supporting Herald Community Newspapers with your donation. It can be one-time, or a monthly contribution, to help ensure we're here through this crisis. To donate or for more information, click here.

After losing her father and her former boyfriend within 11 days of each other to Covid-19 last month, Dr. Zodelia Williams decided she would channel her energy into giving to others rather than allowing grief to defeat her.

Her father, Fernando Williams Sr., died March 24 in Panama, and her former boyfriend, David Hamilton, who was her best friend for 28 years and the father of her children, died April 3.

“This week, I had a decision to make,” said Williams, the Baldwin Herald’s 2019 Person of the Year and the founder and executive director of 3D’s Community Empowerment Center in Baldwin. “Cry all day and night, distance myself from my circle and fall into a deep depression, or listen to the two voices of my dad and David in my head telling me to get up and do what I do best: be intentional about being a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.”

She and one of her daughters, Daria, woke up early last Friday and, with the help of Baldwin Bagel Cafe, delivered breakfast to 170 essential employees working at the Baldwin, North Baldwin and Freeport post offices, as well as Sanitary District 2 in Baldwin and the South Ozone Park post office.

Ambari Designs, a local accessory shop specializing in custom fashion pieces, provided homemade masks to volunteers.

Williams and Daria donated the spreads to honor Williams’s mother, Amelia Musler, who retired from the post office after 30 years of service, and her brother, Fernando Williams, who has worked for the New York City Sanitation Department for 20 years.

“It’s the least we can do to show our appreciation for their selflessness and dedication in this war against coronavirus,” Williams said. The donations, she added, were a small gesture to let the essential employees know that 3D’s Empowerment Center “appreciates you in these tough times.”

She knew, she said, that her father and Hamilton would have wanted her to get up and “do what I do best,” which is help others.

“Although not together,” Williams said of Hamilton, “there is nothing that we wouldn’t do for each other. David was Daria’s real-life superhero. We were BFF and the epitome of what co-parenting should be.”

Many of the post office and sanitation workers thanked Williams for her efforts.

Kevin McGhee, customer service manager at the North Baldwin post office, thanked Williams, 48, on behalf of all of the employees for the kind gesture.

“I am lucky to have one of the best staffs anywhere in the postal service,” McGhee wrote in an email to Williams. “They have been working hard and fulfilling their mission without complaint. Your act of appreciation could not have come at a better time.”

“We certainly want to thank you for what you did for us today,” Chelita Wilson, a letter carrier at South Ozone Park USPS, said in a video message. “I pray that God will bless you, your business, your family and every endeavor that you have. This warms our heart today to know that we are appreciated. God bless you.”