B.C. man builds community by sweeping sidewalk for a decade

“All it takes is everybody doing a little bit” Adam finds out why a man had swept one stretch of sidewalk thousands of times.

VANCOUVER — Although he doesn’t remember the first day he started sweeping the sidewalk, Theron Phillips does know he’s done it almost every day since.

“I usually do it once a day,” Theron says. “If the weather permits.”

Almost every day, for more than a decade.

“If you have the health to do it,” Theron says, “why not?”

More than 3,500 days, cleaning up countless thousands of things.

“Everything from drug paraphernalia to what people just throw out of their car,” Theron says before sweeping up garbage on the ground beside a parked SUV.

He says he doesn’t have to do it, and no one asked him to.

“I think that if (people in the neighbourhood) see I care, it makes them take pride also,” Theron smiles. “It’s kind of old-fashioned, I guess. But that’s just the way I feel.”

When the former gallery manager is not sweeping, he’s combing little bits of shape and colour to create multimedia art.

Theron says community building works the same way.

“All it takes is everybody doing a little bit.”

Since he started doing his little bit, Theron says he’s seen a lot less litter, and a lot more neighbours inspired to volunteer around the building, which is why he plans to keep sweeping every day he can.

“While I was here, I made things a little better than they were when I started,” Theron says. “That’s really what it’s all about.”

And while an artist may use a brush and pallet to paint a canvas, Theron is using his broom and dustpan to maintain a frame of sorts.

He’s sweeping a sidewalk that frames a priceless co-creation of strangers turned neighbours, called home.