Two or three times a week, Jane Adams rides her mobility scooter along Richmond’s pavements - and every time, she returns home with a basket full of litter she has scooped up.
For the past 17 years she has lived in Waimea Village on Gladstone Rd, and hopes to be there for the next 30 years or so.
“I love it here and everybody in it. We look out for one another and are very neighbourly.”
Every week, she heads to Age Concern for a singing session and morning tea one day, then to Club Waimea for music another, as well as a making a trip for her grocery shop.
Litter was always spread along her route and two years ago she decided to do something about it.
“Nobody else is doing it and I got sick of seeing it,” she says. “Sometimes there’s lots of rubbish and sometimes not so much. Sometimes I have a big bagful in my basket.”
It’s not the first time she has stepped up to spruce up the community. When she lived in Oxford with her family, she earnt recognition for transforming a drab area with plantings.
“I’m green fingered, so I like doing it!”
Her sister Ruth Freeman says that Jane hopes her litter-collection efforts might inspire others to do the same in their own communities.
