Belong & Contribute
Just being a kid
13-17
'Just trying to be helpful': Blasdell 'Snow Angel' practicing being a good neighbor after snowstorm
Photo and reporting by
WKBW
Thirty-six inches hit Blasdell overnight, and 14-year-old Mitchell Tisdale went out in a reflector jacket and started clearing driveways nobody asked him to touch. He found neighbor Belinda Bonacquisti still fighting four feet of packed ice at the bottom of hers and finished the whole thing in 40 minutes before she even saw him coming.
The parent stayed out of it
His mom Dawn didn't send him out there. She just let him go, the same way she let him trail behind his dad's snowblower with his own tiny one when he was five.
Why we picked this one
Nobody organized this. There's no club, no sign-up sheet, just a kid who likes engines, a reflector jacket, and a driveway between him and his own breakfast.
Snowstorm hits and by breakfast the driveways are still buried. Hand the kid a shovel, not a list, and point them at the house where nobody's cleared the walk yet. Cash is the excuse. Getting there before anyone asks is the actual point.
Read the full story at
WKBW
Where it happened:
Blasdell, NY
Somewhere in your garage there's a snowblower a five-year-old outgrew, and a kid who never stopped wanting the real one. Yours might be older than 14 by now.