{"id":15078,"date":"2016-05-23T09:14:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T14:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=15078"},"modified":"2016-05-23T09:14:44","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T14:14:44","slug":"video-broom-guy-once-banned-from-post-office-lot-honored-at-walk-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2016\/05\/23\/video-broom-guy-once-banned-from-post-office-lot-honored-at-walk-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: &#8216;Broom Guy&#8217; &#8211; once banned from post office lot &#8211; honored at walk, fair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"INDIANAPOLIS STAR - Embed Player\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/videos\/embed\/82564070\/?fullsite=true\" width=\"475\" height=\"304\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Jim Richter, the\u00a0blind Indianapolis man best known as the &#8220;Broom Guy,&#8221; still has trouble wrapping his head around the recent shake-up in\u00a0his life.<\/p>\n<p>After the<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/2016\/04\/02\/post-office-boots-blind-broom-guy\/82206792\/\">devastating blow<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>in February of being\u00a0booted from his long-time spot\u00a0outside the Nora Post Office, where he had sold brooms for decades, Richter&#8217;s fortunes took a surprising turn. The change has been so dramatic, Richter said, that he now views the incident\u00a0as a blessing in disguise.<\/p>\n<p>The abrupt about-face \u2014 which began following an\u00a0IndyStar story about Richter&#8217;s plight\u00a0\u2014\u00a0brought the anonymous, street-corner icon a rush of local and national attention, and a new level of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/opinion\/readers\/2016\/04\/08\/broom-guy-teaches-inside-matters\/82810380\/\">respect and support<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>in the community. It&#8217;s also reflected in\u00a0a\u00a0boon to the modest business Richter has pursued for more than 60 years\u00a0to\u00a0supplement his Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0full extent of that\u00a0transformation was evident Sunday, when the &#8220;Broom Guy&#8221; served as the honorary grand marshal for\u00a0the 12th annual<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingfordreams.org\/\">Walking for Dreams<\/a>charity\u00a0fundraiser on the canal Downtown.\u00a0Richter, 78, started the walk, which included a team raising money for the Indiana<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/indianabcf.org\/\">Blind Children&#8217;s Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0with a ceremonial &#8220;dropping of the broom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And next month, he will be honored again with a &#8220;Jim Richter Night&#8221; at\u00a0the Marion County Fair. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/2016\/05\/22\/broom-guy-honored-walk-fair\/84592362\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15079\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/broom-guy-honored-walk.jpg\" alt=\"broom-guy-honored-walk\" width=\"457\" height=\"347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/broom-guy-honored-walk.jpg 457w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/broom-guy-honored-walk-300x228.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 457px) 100vw, 457px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Richter, the\u00a0blind Indianapolis man best known as the &#8220;Broom Guy,&#8221; still has trouble wrapping his head around the recent shake-up in\u00a0his life. After the\u00a0devastating blow\u00a0in February of being\u00a0booted from his long-time spot\u00a0outside the Nora Post Office, where he had sold brooms for decades, Richter&#8217;s fortunes took a surprising turn. The change has been so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-video-gallery","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15080,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078\/revisions\/15080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}