The TIMES of Smithtown
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Volume 28, No. 44
CO M PL E T E
Commack volunteer spruces up North Shore By kevin redding
File photos by Alex Petroski
left, ed mikell shows off a clean bus stop in commack just as his Seven cents club launched earlier this year. right, his newfound club sports its name on a spiffy garbage can in town.
‘My father [is] super energetic. ... He wants to make the difference that nobody else is making.’ — Jennifer Mikell
Along Crooked Hill Road in Commack, garbage bags are piled up and filled with everything from fast-food wrappers to plastic cups and glass bottles. Tires, hubcaps, license plates and various construction materials are leaned up against a wooden post. Only an hour or two prior, all these items were littered over the roads, sidewalks and grass. However, thanks to 73-year-old retired Commack resident Ed Mikell, the founder of the Seven Cents Club of Commack — a volunteer group of young people and retirees alike — the community can enjoy something scarcely seen when traveling through any town: cleanliness. For all of his work cleaning up Commack, Mikell was named a 2015 Times of Smithtown Person of the Year. It all started when Mikell was cleaning a bus stop, where he discovered seven cents on the ground. “My father [is] super energetic,” said Ed’s daughter and cleanup volunteer Jennifer Mikell. “He’s been retired for eight years and in his retirement he’s really
done a lot to help others, whether it’s helping people balance their finances and figure out their own retirement, or helping out a local charity group that he works at a couple days a week.” She explained that her father was frustrated that so many areas in his town had become so uncared for and unclean for so long. “He wants to make the difference that nobody else is making.” On Sept. 21, 2014, Mikell first took it upon himself to clean up an “unofficial” bus stop on Crooked Hill Road simply because he didn’t want people to have to stand in garbage. He went home, equipped himself with pails and some tools and went to work. Using an abandoned shopping cart that had been turned sideways so people at the bus stop could sit down, Mikell filled up his pail four times, threw the garbage in the shopping cart, and wheeled it across the street to toss in a dumpster. After making the bus stop pristine, Mikell reached out to the supervisor of Smithtown along with other Suffolk MIKELL continued on page A31