SAN DIEGO — You never know who might be watching you when you commit a good deed. In this Zevely Zone, I went to Ocean Beach for a feel-good story that took me from coast to coast.
This story started with an email sent to News 8 by a viewer. Mark Pacana lives in New Jersey, but he wants to move to San Diego. Every morning he watches the Ace Tattoo Surf Cam in Ocean Beach where two men caught his eye.
"Every morning I see a little mini-van pull up, a beige minivan," said Mark via our online call.
Mark said, "They get out they open the back of their mini-van they pull out two buckets and they walk around the entire beach area cleaning up. God bless them for doing what they are doing."
Mark asked me if I could thank those men, so my photographer Scott Hall and I got up early and drove down to O.B. and sure enough there they were in the parking lot next to the pier.
"Morning," I said.
I was met with a man with a smile who said, "Morning."
I told him, "You've got a fan, watching you from New Jersey from the webcam over there."
I found out, David Hendon and Marc Gervais are two friends who wake up at the crack of dawn every day to pick up trash for free. The work hard!
I said, "You are covered in sweat. It's five o'clock in the morning. Why work so hard?"
Marc told me, "Well because this place looks like (expletive) otherwise."
Marc and Dave are homeless and live in this van with their dog Pico.
"I love this community and people come down here at night and break bottles and you know we are dog lovers and I hate to see a dog on a piece of glass and cut their paws," said Marc.
Turns out the two guys who aren't asking for anything do have a need. I learned that if they don't get some work done on their van soon Marc and Dave won't have a home.
"We are homeless, not moral-less. My dad taught me the first time I went fishing you always make a place look better than when you got there," said Marc.
For four years, not only have they picked up litter in this lot, they've even swept the sand then sifted it to get the tiny pieces of trash. "Cigarette butts, little pieces of hair," said Marc.
Dave then told me, "When we come down every morning it's trashed, I mean look at it now. If you walk through here you may find one or two cigarette butts on the ground but you ain't going to find many."
Dave and Marc both beat addiction and figured if they were going to be clean the streets should be too.
"Makes me feel good when everybody comes up and thanks me and say 'Thank you for a good job," said Dave.
I told him, "Well thank you."
Dave responded, "You are welcome."
So from the west coast, it was time to report back to the east. I called Mark Pacana.
"Their names are Marc and Dave and they are homeless," I said.
"They do it out of the kindness of their hearts."
Mark was incredulous.
"They are homeless? Oh, then we need to set them up a Go Fund Me page or something to get them a home and some cash and whatever," said Mark.
So that's just what we did.
"That's amazing to find two people homeless taking it upon themselves to clean up a beach area every single night," said Mark.
"You know I'm warm, it warms me up especially considering all of the BS that is going on in the world right now."
A good deed. Spotted on a webcam by a Jersey Boy three thousand miles away.
I asked Mark, "What do you want to say to them?"
He told me, "Thank you for being a good citizen. More people need to take a page out of their book. God bless them, that's amazing."
If you'd like to make a donation to help save the volunteers' van, Marc and Dave have a Go Fund Me page. The men are asking for $1,500 on Go Fund Me but are too proud to ask for what they really need which is $ 3,500. Let's do this!!
For a link go to www.gofundme.com/f/2fnn4-litterpickers