This is one of those stories that make me love my profession.
At the Oct. 17 Philadelphia City Council meeting, Jenny Drumgoole took the mic during the public-comment portion of the session and spoke about her adoration of her neighborhood’s sanitation workers. She spoke about hosting a party for them, as she’d done several times before, and implored Council — and, by proxy, residents — to celebration Happy Trash Day with her.
One week later, that’s exactly what she did. So I went, and wrote about it for NewsWorks. Check it out, yo…
On this day, Drumgoole (in the artsy role of a character named “Soxx”) hosted a couple dozen friends from as far away as Vermont.
Their mission was simple, but unusual: Telling Philadelphia’s garbage and recycling collectors that their public service was super-duper appreciated.
That’s exactly what Soxx — a photography instructor at Rowan University who went to Yale and had an intern on the party-prep scene — vowed to do in a three-minute speech before City Council one week earlier.
And that’s exactly why more than a dozen sanitation workers became the life of the party upon their 10:42 a.m. arrival, as the chief of operations for the Streets Department sanitation division and head of their union looked on appreciatively, snapping photos of the festivities.
All were enthusiasticly welcomed by Soxx, who donned a jacket (or dress) to which she hot glued 12 bags of beans and macaroni for the occasion, thus creating a 60-pound garment
“It’s the little things that make people happy,” said Soxx. “Clearly, this is a little thing, but it’s great to make them so happy.”
There’s much, much more. Read it here.