It’s a special time for Marta Koock in Forest Hills each week when Adriana Rivera is comes to visit.

“Now we’ve adopted each other,” Rivera said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“She adopt me,” Koock said, smiling. “And I’m very happy about it.”

Rivera is a friendly visitor with Queens Community House, a nonprofit organization that runs programming throughout the borough. The friendly visitor program pairs volunteers with homebound older New Yorkers, like Koock, who don’t have many opportunities to socialize.

“She’s here by herself, and I want to be able to just situate her in any way that I can within my means to make her life, you know, just a little bit better,” Rivera said.

Rivera, who works for Spectrum, is no stranger to getting her boots on the ground. She served as an auxiliary police officer in the 90s and currently volunteers as a job coach with the Coalition for the Homeless.

“I believe when you do a lot of good, it returns the favor. The universe does look out for you. And it just makes me feel good,” she said.

When Rivera’s mother passed away, she turned to volunteering to fill the void.

“I really do miss her,” Rivera said. “It’s just she raised me to the best of her ability.”

Rivera matched with Koock last winter. Koock lost her husband around the same time Rivera lost her mother. 

“Her mother passed in 2019 and also my husband passed in 2019,” Koock said. “Yeah. Then we are in the same level of dealing with the loss.”

The pair quickly bonded talking about family and music.

“We just talk about anything and everything, and it’s like it’s therapy,” Rivera said. “It’s therapy for both of us.”

And it’s an opportunity for a sweet addition to their lives.

“It’s like the cake,” Koock said. “It’s bonding all the ingredients together. We’re getting a good cake.”

“Yes. I think so. I think it’s going to be a nice big, you know, happy birthday cake,” Rivera agreed. “It’s going to be awesome.”

For being a friend to her fellow New Yorkers, Adriana Rivera is our New Yorker of the Week.