Mark the Litter Guy

I have had a very interesting day. Not because it is a Thanksgiving Monday, nor because it is the hottest Thanksgiving Monday on record, but because I met "Mark the Litter Guy".

Most businesses and stores were closed for the holiday. Downtown streets were much quieter than usual with hardly anyone walking around, to the point that any little thing out of the ordinary could easily be spotted from a distance.

While running some errands in the city, at the corner of Queen West & Augusta, I saw a person with a big black bin bag, picking up garbage off the street. He had a sign on his back that says:

"THE LITTER GUY CLEANING UP OUR COMMUNITY.
DONATIONS OF $ or SUPPLIES KEEPING ME WoRKING FoR ANoTHER DAY.
THANX 4 THE SUPPORT"

I stopped my car immediately, ran across the road and handed him some money, told him what a great thing he is doing, and thanked him for making a difference in our community. He gave me a big smile and expressed his gratitude, then off we went our separate ways.

As I was driving away, all I could think of was that smile he gave me, it was full of life, positivity, conviction and hope. I needed to know more about this person, so I made an U-turn.

His name is Mark, and he has been picking up about 80 bags of garbage per day from our streets for more than a year now.
It all started when he was in dire need of money to pay his rent, but refused to beg. He had also often tried getting work as a day labourer; waking up at 4am in the morning, taking the TTC for hours, just so that he could line up for odd labour jobs that quite often weren't enough to go around.

So, he created his own job. He decided to go around the city cleaning up our streets. But instead of asking for money verbally, he let the people decide, by having a sign on his backpack, telling us what he is doing and that he accepts donations.

Although over the year he has met people and businesses that support him by donating bin bags, gloves, food, water and money, quite often he still needs to purchase his own supplies in order to carry on with his job; a job he obviously takes seriously.

After listening to his fascinating story, I suggested to help create a personal blog for him, for those people who want to help, and for people with ideas and suggestions to be able to get in touch with him. At the same time, he can share his thoughts and interesting experiences with the world.

As soon as Mark's blog is set up, I will be posting an update here.

Shortly after we said goodbye to each other, I saw a beautiful $200K Aston Martin at a distance, parked on the side of the street. Just as I drove past this fine automobile, a piece of trash flew out of the driver's side window onto the road.

Ironically, here is a person who obviously has so much and couldn't care less about society and there was Mark who has very little and yet is still willing to give back.