About eight years ago, during a heat wave, Charlie Poveromo began an annual tradition. Poveromo, then a bartender at a restaurant in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, saw his local garbage men looking pale and sweaty and jumped into action. He ran into his house, grabbed a jug of water from his fridge and told his wife to bring the plastic cups. He ushered the men into the shade. That afternoon, on his only day off that week, Poveromo went out and bought cases of bottled water, bags of ice and a cooler. The cooler would stand in front of his home every summer, five days a week, as a gesture of gratitude for employees toiling outside. Poveromo died of a heart attack in March. But his widow, Velvet, is continuing the tradition. She said, “Once the weather started getting warm, I thought, ‘Oh my god, the water bottles.’ I had to do it. It was his tradition and I had to honor him.”