By Guy Oron
For hours each day, multiple times a week, Pauline Van Senus picks up litter and pulls weeds along pavements all around Seattle, Washington, US.
As the Transit Fairy, Van Senus has become something of a guardian of some of what were historically the city’s dirtiest bus stops. Her mission is to clean them up so that transit users, and the community as a whole, have safe, accessible and pleasant routes of travel.
Instead of waiting for the government or large organisations to act, the Transit Fairy has taken action into her own hands, painstakingly cleaning her self-designated sites every day. She relies entirely on donations – and thousands of hours of her own time.
Her work has won recognition and admiration from many community members, including businesses and people experiencing homelessness. She says that once, someone even pulled their car over to hand her a donation. “I get a lot of positive feedback from [disabled people] and from riders,” she says. “Even [people experiencing homelessness] like it.”
This article first appeared in Real Change, a magazine sold on the streets of Seattle, Washington, USA, by people who have limited other ways of earning an income.