Fourth grade class honors GFL hometown heroes

Driver Alex Brown and helper Kenny Anderson’s friendliness and dedication to their customers earned them a hometown heroes award from the fourth grade class at Oak Hall School in Gainesville, Florida. 

General manager Kevin Smith received a call from a teacher at Oak Hall, a private school for pre-Kindergarten to grade 12 students. She told Kevin that her home is on one of the recycling routes Alex and Kenny service, and that her son wanted his fourth grade class to nominate them for a hometown heroes award at Oak Hall. 

“She said her son gravitated to Alex and Kenny because whenever they service her route, they always say good morning or good afternoon to her son and that means the world to her little boy,” Smith said. “No matter what time of day it is, Alex and Kenny always have positive energy.” 

The pair also gave her son a toy garbage recycling truck last Christmas because he loves the GFL trucks so much.  

Each class at Oak Hall nominated someone in the community to be considered for the hometown hero award. The teachers then reviewed all the nominations and chose a winner for each grade. 

To receive their honor, Alex and Kenny took their truck to the school where they met with the fourth grade students who presented them with a certificate, along with a green cardboard cutout GFL truck and a poster signed by all the students. 

“We spent about 45 minutes with the class talking about the truck and they took pictures,” said Brown. “It was Kenny’s birthday so they had a cake for him.” 

The kids also put together care packages of Gatorade and potato chips for the other Gainesville GFL drivers. 

“It felt good to explain to them what we do and how important the job is,” Anderson said. “We had some dialogue back and forth about how important recycling is.” 

Both Alex and Kenny served in the military prior to joining GFL and Kevin could not say enough about what a great team they make. Alex has been with GFL for two years and Kenny has been with GFL for three years.   

Alex and Kenny service 1,800 to 2,000 residences a day on their various GFL recycling routes. 

“They are industrial athletes,” Smith said. “Their jobs are manually intensive and day in and day out they really give it their all. To be recognized means so much because they are definitely unsung heroes.” 

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