“Giving back to your city”: a duo of friends voluntarily cleans the streets of the Village

Two Montreal friends who were tired of hearing that the Village was dirty decided to devote part of their free time to volunteer cleaning the streets of the neighborhood.

“We were already doing it around our houses. When we saw comments on the internet saying that the Village was a little dirty, we said to ourselves that we would show up and clean it up,” explains Jérémi Chénier, 37 years old.

Even though they live in Little Italy and Saint-Michel, he and his friend Michel Bélisle have been spending part of their days in the Village for several months. Accompanied by a broom and a garbage bin on wheels, they collect waste (cigarette butts, food wrappers and drug bags, in particular) on Sainte-Catherine and the side streets.

A question of education

We accompanied them during one of their chores. Mr. Bélisle, 77, worked as a white-collar worker for the City of Montreal. For him, doing his part as a retired Montrealer is a question of education. “My parents said: “Take care of your piece of sidewalk in front of your house. Once you’ve done that, if your neighbor’s house is dirty, go help them.” That’s the spirit of community. This is our city,” he said.

Jérémi sees it as an opportunity to make himself useful. “As long as we stay at home, watch Netflix, I said to myself, let’s go outside,” he says.

The duo leaves few people indifferent in their wake. “There are some […] who tell us what to pick up, we find that a bit funny, there are other people who tell us that it’s not up to us to do it, it’s up to the City to pay. Ninety percent of people, it inspires them, they find it fun,” says Jérémi.

Reinforcement for the Village Squad

On their way, they also met an employee of the Village Squad, set up by the Commercial Development Corporation to clean Sainte-Catherine Street and maintain the vegetation on the artery. “I find it fantastic, these are people who take the Village to heart. If everyone was a bit like that, the Village would be cleaner and cleaner,” says René Dubuc, member of the Squad.

Mr. Dubuc has seen all the colors this summer. “Cans of beer, liquor, sometimes syringes, people will eat a pizza, they will throw the plate on the ground or put it in the flower pots. They use flower pots a lot as trash cans. Sometimes people are robbed and we find identity cards, weapons, iron bars, a knife,” he says.

The three men, however, maintain that the Village is much cleaner than what people say. “We like to take photos of waste, take offense and put it on social networks. It’s not that dirty compared to New York or Toronto,” concludes Jérémi.