Recycling, as a Means to Survive

[Liberal_in_LA]

Patricia Walsh in the kitchen of her apartment, which is furnished largely with things salvaged from the trash. She reads three newspapers a day and shares her home with six cats and a pit bull.

Recycling, as a Means to Survive
By JENNIFER MASCIA
Published: December 16, 2010

Patricia Walsh says she is 58, but her sinewy appearance and the absence of gray hair make her look younger, as if the aging process has been frozen in its tracks by the many stone-cold mornings she has spent collecting cans.

Patricia Walsh in the kitchen of her apartment, which is furnished largely with things salvaged from the trash. She reads three newspapers a day and shares her home with six cats and a pit bull.

Every year since 1911, New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. Articles will appear daily through Jan. 30, illustrating the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Ms. Walsh, during her rounds of searching for things to reuse or recycle.
“I am not a morning person,” she said, petting her 1 ½-year-old pit bull, Miss Ariel Westcock. “I hate to get up. I literally drag myself out of bed, but I do it.”

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One morning on her rounds, she spotted a flier advertising Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, printed entirely in Spanish. She had managed to salvage her smaller items from the sealed house, but she contacted the agency — one of the seven beneficiaries of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund — and received $529 for a new bed and dresser.

“I never had a new bed in my life,” she said. “It’s a weird feeling.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/nyregion/17neediest.html

[Pathwalker]

1. My favorite aunt turned to "scrapping" in her later years,

when she was no longer able to work because of her heart condition. They found her dead beside a dumpster one day, her heart pills still in her hands. She sold aluminum cans for cash, and all her furniture was cast-offs from others.

I'm so glad the lady in this story has a new bed, it will let her know some comfort.

[virgogal]

2. I downsized 5 years ago and put some fairly decent furniture out for the city

to pick up the next morning.

It was gone in 2 hours.