Maya McFadden Photo
Israel Estrada, Linda Neaton, Juel Crawford, Jenni Butman, Sarah Moore gather in neighbor’s yard.
A backyard cleanup at a homebound elderly woman’s yard served as a good deed, a “vaccination celebration,” and a reminder of community for volunteers ready to emerge from pandemic isolation.
The cleanup took place Saturday at neighboring yard behind Israel Estrada’s house.
Since moving to New Haven two years ago, Estrada would look over the fence at his Maple Street property and see a neighboring yard of debris and junk. This week he decided to do something about it.
Estrada made a call to his neighbor and learned that it was an eighty nine year old homebound widow with a son who works a lot and doesn’t live nearby. Estrada learned that she is on a fixed income and hasn’t been able to afford to hire a clean-up service for her Winthrop Avenue home.
Estrada offered to spend his day off from work on Saturday to clean up the backyard.
The yard is filled with her sons’ two cars and several spare car parts. Behind the shed were several inches of condensed leaves piled up along with trash, in the area Estrada could see from his property.
Estrada asked volunteers to join him via the NextDoor app for the Saturday cleanup to help out a neighbor.
Housemates Jenni Butman, Linda Neaton and Juel Crawford: Vaccinated, and ready to help out a neighbor.
West River housemates Jenni Butman, 85, Linda Neaton, 55, and Juel Crawford, 60, joined the cleanup to celebrate them all getting fully vaccinated.
“It feels good to be out here for something like this,” said Crawford. “We’ve been inside for so long; this is the best way to celebrate.”
The team cleared away broken glass, leaves, tires, cars parts, liter, and scrap metal from the yard. The volunteers raked through layers of fall leaves, which buried scraps like a rusted bed frame, wheelbarrow, exercise bike, and motorcycle frame.
One broken rake later, the team cleared a walking pathway in the yard corner and successfully organized the dozens of car parts for the neighbors son to go through when he next visits.
Penny Welbourne, 73, was looking forward to joining the cleanup several days in advance. “In 20 years I’ve never seen such an unselfish gesture in New Haven,” she said.
Welbourne, a widow, hardly ever leaves her West Park Avenue home. Despite suffering from a severe spinal cord injury from a car accident years ago, Welbourne said she joined because she had always hoped that someone would offer her help when she cleans up her own yard alone.
“This reminded me of who I am. I love to help people,” she said. “This is the most wonderful thing in the world.”
In three hours the team filled up 24 bags of leaves and a hefty pile of trash.
Housemates Butman, Neaton, and Crawford said they’re working on developing an initiative in which neighbors would conduct community cleanups around the community on a weekly basis.
What an awesome way to celebrate being fully vaccinated!
Neighbors helping neighbors.
This pandemic has created increased isolation and we are all hungry for positive human social interactions. Working together to help neighbors clean up yards, to repair or spruce up the outside around the buildings and green spaces in the neighborhood, clean up common use areas and public spaces, and starting or joining community gardens or other shared activities help to build community ties, put more eyes on the street, and show others that your neighborhood cares and looks out for each other.
Thank you to these wonderful neighbors organizing and helping out an elderly neighbor and in the process making the city a better place to live.