Courtney Luciana Photo
Reggie Gibson cleaning "the bridge."
Nip bottles, candy wrappers and cigarette butts cluttered the road. Until Reggie Gibson showed up with his broom.
Gibson cleared the well-travelled block of Dewitt Street above the railroad tracks Thursday morning near Lamberton Street in the Hill, as he has done regularly for the past two years.
“Somebody’s gotta do it,” Gibson said during a pause to chat on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. “And I guess that’s me. This is where we live, so we’re trying to keep the neighborhood clean.”
The clean-up is part of a morning routine for Gibson, who is 57. He gets up around 5 a.m. and brings his grandson, Isaiah, to Truman School at 8. Around 8:30 a.m., he gets to work using a large outdoor broom and two garbage cans to collect the trash; he originally had one can, then received a second one from the public works department after his work attracted its attention.
Gibson: "If you do it, other people will get involved."
Gibson lives on Rosette Street, right around the corner from “the bridge,” as the stretch is known in the neighborhood. Many people carelessly drop their trash onto as they cross over, he said.
He had to pause the work six months ago when he underwent knee surgery; he had blown out his knee while working one of his night shifts at an Amazon warehouse. He returned with the broom as soon as he could.
“My knee does hurt, but I’m never going to stop doing for my community,” Gibson said.
Gibson has a deep connection to the neighborhood. He grew up here, he said — and remained there during a rough stretch two decades ago when he was homeless for a stretch and addicted to crack. He went through recovery here. He said he has 17 grandchildren in the neighborhood; he wants to serve as a role model for them by keeping the area clean.
“I just want to give back. I want to help other people,” Gibson said. “If you do it, other people will get involved and the world will be a better place.”
In the mornings, Gibson sees a lot of people who are struggling with homelessness, depression, and drinking. He tells them how he got clean, and invites them to help keep Dewitt Street clean.
“I tell those people that I was there,” Gibson. “I was homeless. I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. All of that. Somebody helped me and enlightened me. And if I can be a help to you then I will.”
“They’ll listen to what I have to say but some of them aren’t ready yet,” Gibson said. “We’ve just got to keep trying and one day they will be ready. Nobody wants to be in that situation.”
In the meantime, he said, he convinces some of the people he meets to help him collect the trash. He said that during that time when he was in that position he just wanted others to understand him.
“I wanted people to realize that I’m not a bad guy, and if I had a chance, that I would do something different,” Gibson said. “In other words, I don’t like to put people down or anything like that. It’s just their circumstances are a little difficult for them and they don’t know how to handle it. So they look for a crutch.”
“I also like to feed the people, on my own. I try to give them a hot meal,” Gibson said. “I’ll take the fryer out here from time to time and set up on the corner, and make a fish fry, or chicken and fries.”
Gibson ended up collecting almost a full garbage can worth of trash during his volunteer shift Thursday.
The outcome: a cleaner bridge and neighborhood.
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Reggie Gibson on the "Word on the Street" segment of WNHH FM's "LoveBabz LoveTalk."