ERVING — While driving 10 minutes down the road to her mother’s house, Andrée Clearwater desperately tried to beat the Alternative Recycling Truck scheduled to pick up 50 boxes of recycling she had left in the driveway. Inside one of the boxes lay four family scrapbooks that her sister belatedly asked be kept.
When Clearwater got to the residence, she was too late — or so she thought. The recycling employees were loading the last of the boxes and compressing them in the trash truck. Clearwater didn’t think there was a chance she would see her family scrap books again.
“We were cleaning out my mother’s house because she was recently moved to an assisted living facility, so we’ve been cleaning out the house she lived in for 20 years,” Clearwater explained. “On this particular day, we had about 50 boxes of papers, and I found a baby scrapbook for my sister and brothers as well as one from a trip to Nova Scotia. I took some photos and e-mailed them to my sister in Germany.”
At 7:30 a.m. the next day, the garbage truck arrived at the residence to pick up the boxes, and at the same time Clearwater received an e-mail from her sister requesting she send her the scrapbook.
“‘It’s 10 minutes down the road,’ I said to myself. I drove there, but by the time I got there they just put the last box in,” Clearwater said. “I had met the two workers before, and I asked them if there was any way they could get the scrapbooks. They were so kind, gracious and helpful.”
Unbeknownst to Clearwater, the two employees, Elio Zelazquez and Cheryle Kennedy, later decided to pull over, shut down the truck and search for the scrapbook.
Kennedy said she understood why Clearwater was looking for the scrapbooks.
“I can relate because I’m from Mississippi and during Hurricane Katrina, I dug through my house full of mud and found my kids’ baby teeth,” Kennedy said. “It’s got a lot of memories. It’s the little things.”
Zelazquez said he had an idea what the scrapbooks looked like when he was loading them into the truck, which was helpful when they started searching.
“I remembered looking at it (the scrapbook) when I was loading it into the truck,” Zelazquez said. “When I described it to her (Clearwater) she said that was the one. It was already compressed in the truck, but we turned off all the power in the truck and went looking for it. We got in, dug around and found it.”
He said they wanted to surprise her with the scrapbooks, so they went to Peterman’s Boards and Bowl Shop, where Clearwater works as the retail manager.
“It was awesome, it was a blessing to do something like that for someone,” Zelazquez said. “That’s our job; it’s in the history of the company. We go above and beyond. We say, ‘We’ll try our best.’ And we do.”
Kennedy agreed, saying she felt good to return the scrapbook to Clearwater, who began to cry when they were returned.
“It was a great way to end the workday on a Friday,” Kennedy said. “It was the right thing to do.”
Clearwater said she amazed when she saw Zelazquez and Kennedy.
“It was just human beings being nice to human beings,” Clearwater said. “It was wonderful, my sister is going to be thrilled.”