Nova Scotia woman bags new roof by collecting 60,000 recyclables

It started as a joke.

Tina Watkins needed a new roof. After finishing a can of pop, she set it down and teased that she was "five cents closer" to that goal.

"My friend looked at me and laughed. Well, he's not laughing now," said Watkins, who lives in a mobile home in Truro, N.S.

Over the following three months, Watkins collected roughly 60,000 bottles and cans, garnering enough cash and community support to put a new roof over her head after what was an arduous few years.

Watkins works at the Truro Big Stop Restaurant and was laid off when the province went into lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 in March 2020.

Three months later — just as she was being called back to work — she broke her leg, putting her out of work for another six months. 

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The cash-strapped 61-year-old was then saddled with a big expense: replacing the roof on her three bedroom, 20-metre trailer. 

"I thought, 'There's no way I'm going to be able to afford this,'" said Watkins, who was able to start working again part-time in October 2020.

She started collecting recyclables, pinning up a poster at work detailing her efforts. Then, a friend got a hold of the sign handwritten by Watkins in colourful markers.

"She said she was going to put it on her wall, and I thought she meant her wall at work, because she works at the food bank," said Watkins. "The next thing I knew it was on Facebook, and I guess from there it just started blowing up."

The calls started rolling in. She borrowed a truck from a friend for six weeks in order to manage the collection of the recyclables and delivery to Subway Bottle Exchange and Scrap Yard.

It was a lot of hard work. She spent hours sorting all of the bottles and cans. At one point — staring down a mountain of recyclables in front of her home — she became overwhelmed.

"I was sitting at my kitchen table and I was almost in tears, down in the dumps, thinking, 'I can't do this. I'm 60 years old. I have to be crazy to be doing this,'" said Watkins, who celebrated her 61st birthday on Sunday.

"All of a sudden, a wind chime that I had brought home from my dad's when he passed away made a sound. There was nobody in the house but me and no windows open. I just sat there and I looked at it and I burst into tears and said, 'I can do this.'"

Watkins ended up raising more than $3,000. Stonehouse Roofing and Contracting donated some materials, and she spent $2,100 to cover the rest.

During one bottle pickup outside an apartment building, a man told Watkins he used to be a roofer and offered to help install the roof.

Her neighbour, who is also a roofer, volunteered to help, too. A few other community members also signed on. None would take payment, she said.

"It was really amazing. They did a beautiful job," she said of the laminate shingle roof completed earlier this fall, adding that she used some of the funds to feed the crew.

"It just gives you a feeling that there's still those people out there that want to help. I just stood there when I saw them up there doing it, and I cried."

Garret Buchanan said he was first in line to help his neighbour and friend.

When he moved to the area about a year ago, the mobile home he purchased had no electricity and was in shambles. The 20-year-old man had a new baby on the way and was under the gun to complete the renovations and make his new home livable.

As he was setting up a generator to run his power tools, Watkins walked over and offered up her own trailer as a power source.

After his daughter arrived, Watkins was often over helping out the young couple. And when Buchanan's vehicle broke down, she didn't hesitate to offer up her own car so his wife could get to an appointment.

"I don't think I'd be where I'm at right now if it wasn't for her," said Buchanan, adding that a former boss happily lent him some roofing tools to help complete the job, and another friend offered up a dump trailer to deal with garbage removal.

"I'm standing here looking at the roof right now, and I don't mean to toot my own horn, but, damn, it looks good."

Watkins had $1,200 leftover, which she plans to put toward three new windows for her mobile home.

Although her official fundraising efforts are over, she still has people calling her to come collect bottles and cans, which she happily takes for her window fund.

"I appreciate every single can and bottle and conversation I've had with people," said Watkins. "I have met so many amazing people, had so many good laughs and a few cries. And yes, I would do it all again."