Electrician John Kinney fixed the problem and got her lights working again. But when he returned to his own home that weekend, he said he couldn’t stop thinking about Scott, 72, living with her dog in her dilapidated house in Woburn, Mass., a suburban working-class community about 12 miles outside of Boston.

Derlin Newey, infamous for his standard greeting when he doles out pizza for Papa John's as an 89-year-young delivery man, got a special delivery himself this week when a Utah family gifted him $12,000.