Christine Tyler Hill turned her morning shift into a feel-good and lucrative venture with a subscription base, launching a mail delivered newsletter in January and quickly scored 2,000 subscribers, with thousands more on the waiting list.
The business now brings in about $14,000 per month.
Christine Tyler Hill, 36, took a job as a school crossing guard in Burlington, Vermont, after years of working as a designer and illustrator. She was looking for a way to feel more connected to her community.
Each weekday starting around 7:30 a.m., she spends 50 minutes managing a crosswalk near a local school. The post exposes her to the same faces and varying weather each morning, giving her a steady stream of small moments and details to write about.
Her venture started in late 2023, when she took the crossing guard job and began writing a monthly “cloud report,” which she posted on social media. The report included snippets of her day — like photos of a handwritten thank-you note from a child and snow falling on a store.
Her venture started in late 2023, when she took the crossing guard job and began writing a monthly “cloud report,” which she posted on social media. The report included snippets of her day — like photos of a handwritten thank-you note from a child and snow falling on a store.
Hill has since decided to monetize her side hustle and start a mail club. In January 2026, she debuted the club to her 33,000 TikTok followers in a seven-second clip, explaining that for $8 a month, she would handwrite and illustrate an eight-page magazine chronicling observations from her job and send it out to subscribers. It only took a few days for Hill to get her first 1,000 subscribers.
