DALLAS — It all started with a litterburg.
“There’s no sense dumping your trash out someplace like that,” said Kenneth Winn.
About 12 years ago, Winn says he saw someone throwing trash in the parking lot of Home Depot in Mesquite.
That incident opened his eyes.
“I started noticing it more and said, ‘I’m gonna do something about it,’” Winn recalled.
Over the past decade, Winn has spent thousands of hours picking up trash in southeast Dallas. He collects anything he can find. Empty cups, discarded tires, or dumped food.
No crumb is left behind.
Winn doesn’t get paid and no one asked him to do it. He’ll be 80 next month and says he won’t give up, even though oftentimes, he cleans one spot and, the next day, it’s littered with trash again.
“If you give up, it won’t get picked up,” he said. “I figured I want to try and make a difference.”
Nowhere does he make a bigger difference than rescuing shopping carts.
Winn fishes them from wherever they’ve been dumped, fixes them up and then donates them to a food bank called Inspired Vision.
“We have 5-10 carts that walk off every day,” said Inspired Vision CEO Teadran White. “If Ken didn’t do what he did, we would have a hard time functioning.”
“I love people too and I love doing something good,” Winn said.
He hopes this inspires others to do something good, too.
Winn says people don’t have to pick up trash to care about others or the community. They just have to do the right thing because someone is bound to notice.
“Just to see your actions goes a long way,” he said.
Even in the trash, you’re bound to find treasure.
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