They were spotted on a surf webcam by Mark Pacana in New Jersey three thousand miles away, who wants to move to San Diego
Every morning Mark Pacana watches the Ace Tattoo Surf Cam in Ocean Beach where two men caught his eye. “Every morning I see a little mini-van pull up, a beige minivan,” said Mark on a call to San Diego local news reporter Mark Zevely. “They get out they open the back of their mini-van they pull out two buckets and they walk around the entire beach area cleaning up. God bless them for doing what they are doing.”
Pacana asked Zevely if he could thank those men, so Zevely and photographer Scott Hall got up early and drove down to O.B. and found Hendon and Gervais in the parking lot next to the pier. Zevely found out that David Hendon and Marc Gervais are two friends who wake up at the crack of dawn every day to pick up trash for free.
“Morning,” Zevely said, when met with a man with a smile who said, “Morning.”
Zevely told him, “You’ve got a fan, watching you from New Jersey from the webcam over there.”
They work hard!
Zevely asked Pacana, “What do you want to say to them?” He replied, “Thank you for being a good citizen. More people need to take a page out of their book. God bless them, that’s amazing.”
If you’d like to make a donation to help, Marc and Dave have a Go Fund Me page. The men were asking for $1,500 on Go Fund Me https://www.gofundme.com/f/2fnn4-litterpickers but are too proud to ask for what they really need which is $ 3,500 to get their van in shape.
Jeremy Kleiger, the Service Director from San Diego Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, has twenty technicians ready to repair whatever the van needs.
“You are covered in sweat. It’s five o’clock in the morning. Why work so hard?” Zevely asked Marc, “Well because this place looks like (expletive) otherwise.” Marc and Dave are homeless and live in this van with their dog Pico. “I love this community and people come down here at night and break bottles and you know we are dog lovers and I hate to see a dog on a piece of glass and cut their paws,” said Marc.
Turns out the two guys who aren’t asking for anything do have a need. I learned that if they don’t get some work done on their van soon Marc and Dave won’t have a home. “We are homeless, not moral-less. My dad taught me the first time I went fishing you always make a place look better than when you got there,” said Marc.
Turns out the two guys who aren’t asking for anything do have a need. I learned that if they don’t get some work done on their van soon Marc and Dave won’t have a home. “We are homeless, not moral-less. My dad taught me the first time I went fishing you always make a place look better than when you got there,” said Marc.
For four years, not only have they picked up litter in this lot, they’ve even swept the sand then sifted it to get the tiny pieces of trash. “Cigarette butts, little pieces of hair,” said Marc. Dave then told me, “When we come down every morning it’s trashed, I mean look at it now. If you walk through here you may find one or two cigarette butts on the ground but you ain’t going to find many.”
https://www.gofundme.com/f/2fnn4-litterpickers
And by the way, happy 50th anniversary to the OB Rag! https://obrag.org
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