HOMETOWN HERO: Community health worker helps patients through pandemic

WILMINGTON, Delaware (WPVI) -- Life has been no walk in the park for Moieshia Triplett. A little more than a year ago, a Wilmington, Delaware park was her only home, and park benches were her bed.

"You've made tremendous, tremendous steps," Carol Green-Archie, a community health worker at ChristianaCare, told her.

Triplett now has a bench she looks forward to sitting on, next to Green-Archie.

"I just needed a support system. I didn't have that and Miss Carol became that. She became a support system, she became a sister to me, a mother figure," said Triplett.

Green-Archie's job is to make a connection with patients.

"Whether it's their health goal, whether they want to lower their diabetes, whether they want to reduce their blood pressure, I'm there to be that support person," said Green-Archie.

Making that connection has proved more challenging during COVID-19, where in-person meetings are less frequent and people have been feeling more isolated.

"I try to find that one thing that connects them to me and also connects me to them," said Green-Archie.

Carol has 30 patients. Through the lockdown, she called patients like Moieshia every day, and, when it was safe, met with them again, too.

"I was just like I couldn't believe it, I was very ecstatic like Miss Carol! Miss Carol! Like she was a celebrity in my life," said Triplett.

Triplett now has two full-time jobs and a place to stay, but she still likes to come back to the park where she used to sleep, now with Green-Archie; it's a good place for them to talk.

"I'm still fine-tuning my life right now but I can honestly say I'm in a better place than I was a few months ago," said Triplett.

A hero to Triplett, Green-Archie is powering through her own struggles too. The week before the lockdown, her husband went into surgery for brain cancer. He's recovering, but Green-Archie says helping her patients helped her too.

"I feel that I'm put on this earth to actually serve. So my life is not my own, my life is to serve others and to help others," she said.