Raising a family is no walk in the park…or is it? For one man, a walk in the park—collecting cans for the mere pennies they reward—is how he puts food on the table. A recovering crack-addict, rehabilitated criminal, and father of three, Earl McDonald is a fixture in the University Heights community for his monopoly on the can-collecting business. And though he lives miles away in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Buffalo, he treks almost daily to the Heights, relying on the cluttered recycling bins of college students to survive.

McDonald was born on February 21, 1960. A weathered man of 47, he grew up on the East Side of Buffalo. His hair and beard are speckled with gray, and his face is hardened by years living on the streets; still, his eyes are still soft with wisdom. His matter-of-fact speech and willingness to share his experiences give him a warm aura. McDonald has overcome tremendous evil, and has been fortunate enough to live to tell about it.

“Just last Tuesday I had a kid tell me, ‘I almost died,’” Earl McDonald says, his eyes wandering out in the cold. “I sat there with him. His girlfriend, parents and, shit, man… just so many tears, man. This kid’s only 17 years old, been hooked on drugs ever since he was 14. His brains is like, damn near fried, but I told him ‘They aren’t fried yet.’” McDonald, too, has struggled with drugs throughout his life. Now, he offers his experience and support to kids in need.

McDonald graduated from Bennett High School in 1978. He once dreamed of grooming and training K9 dogs for the police, but now supports himself and his family by collecting cans and bottles. “It’s like a job to me,” he says, pointing to his can-filled shopping cart. “On a good day you could make about eighty bucks.” He attaches large bags every which way, to ensure no can is left behind.

McDonald has worked many odd jobs throughout his life, collecting what he could to get by. “I never was the type of person to be in the public system,” he says, shaking his head. Living near Filmore Avenue on Buffalo’s East Side, McDonald has somewhat of a commute to Englewood. His neighborhood, he says, is a mess. “A lot of marijuana, a lot of crack. My family won’t even come over and visit me.” In summer, he says, it’s even worse. “A lot of people getting shot…”

McDonald often makes the trip up to the student-populated Heights. The amount of cans generated by a weekend of college binge drinking in party neighborhoods creates a whole new economy on the streets. He hits up Minnesota and Winspear Avenues, and all the roads that surround UB’s South Campus. His face is recognizable throughout those areas.

The student apartments of Englewood Avenue have become McDonald’s second home. “People over here have always trusted me, especially college students at Christmas time. They ask me, ‘Please watch my house when I’m gone.’”

It wasn’t always this way, though, as McDonald is quick to point out.

For over ten years, McDonald used crack cocaine heavily. By 1997 he was in court, faced with armed robbery. “I had started using crack… cans and bottles wasn’t supporting me, you know?” He pauses for a second, his eyes fill with the memory, and he draws a breath. “I robbed a place called the Red Apple, right here on Niagara Falls Boulevard.” When caught, he says, he felt a change. “I think I was kind of hoping to get caught. I was tired. I was out there for, like, five years using crack.”

When he robbed the store, McDonald remembers, he asked for an application before putting a handgun to the clerk’s head. “See, back then it was cool and it was smooth because I had did it a couple times before and had got away with it… but I forgot I was fuckin’ with Amherst this time.”

McDonald remembers that his actions were a cry for help. He was almost grateful to have gotten caught when he did, and believes the road he was traveling would have led him to more harm and self-destruction.

At 38, it was the first time McDonald would do time, and it looked like three and a half years. He pauses for a long while thinking. “The judge said ‘Why did you wait until you were 38 years old to start committing crimes? Why did you do this?’” His voice becomes softer. “I said, ‘Well your honor, maybe I’ll sit here for three and a half years and learn a valuable lesson, cause I never should have done that to that young girl. It was bad and it was senseless what I did.’” He sits back in his chair nodding to himself.

“I’m kinda glad Amherst police did get me. I think I would be—I’d be dead man. I’d be doin’ more and more robberies, more vicious robberies.” McDonald explains how getting away with something once can make you feel untouchable.

When McDonald was a young man of twenty-one, he moved down to Washington D.C. and lived there for six years. “When I was livin’ in D.C. I was a big dealer. That’s where my business started. So much drugs, so many women, so much money.” McDonald eventually came back to his roots in Buffalo around 1987. “Around then I got caught in Rochester with a key [kilogram] and a half of cocaine…powder cocaine…I was lookin’ at fifteen years to life. What it did, is it cleaned me out. Cost me $45,000… I should still be in the penitentiary.” He stresses the fact that right now, as he speaks, he could still be in jail.

Pius Gakure, a pharmaceutical major and sophomore at UB, is a resident on Englewood has seen McDonald around as well. “He comes and asks for cans and all that. He tells me how he’s gettin his struggle on. He needs the cans so he can buy some food for himself,” says Gakure. The majority of students in the Heights are familiar with McDonald. Many find it a service that he comes to collect their cans and are more than willing to help him out.

“He’s the only [person] I give my cans to,” says Micheal Massatt, a junior physics major, and Englewood resident. “The first time he came, my neighbors said, ‘Yea, that’s Earl,’ because they know him… They’ve been living there a while.”

McDonald was addicted to crack for five years. “Crack is a mean addiction,” he says with wide eyes. “There’s no cure for crack.” He openly spills out his addiction and the effect it has had on his life—an addiction that propelled him into a world of drugs and crime. He explains that he felt using crack made him violate not only himself, but those around him. Coming back to Buffalo from D.C., his addiction took hold in the 1990s.

“I would get my money from this area…then I’d go to Bailey. Bailey was poppin’ man. I mean, you could go on any corner and get some big bags of crack, big bags! That was the shit to me you know?” he says, laughing. “For me to hustle over here then go down to buy me some crack.”

Being on the streets this long, McDonald has experienced countless troubles. From a young hustler to a seasoned can-collector, his experience and insight into life on the streets seems boundless. He asserts that drugs have become a huge problem in this area over the past couple of decades, where more people are now relying on collecting money any way they can to fund their addiction.

“See, a lot of people don’t have a place to go ‘cause they violate the people around them. Crack violates you.” Many people who collect cans in Buffalo, McDonald says, receive Supplemental Security Income, a monthly benefit that provides cash and Medicaid to those with disabilities. “A lot of people collecting cans, I bet you nine times out of ten they are on SSI,” McDonald says.

“They get 800 dollars a month, but when they get that money, they smoke it up cause they can always rely on comin’ back here to get cans and bottles. At that time, you hungry. When you get yourself a piece of crack, you don’t eat nothin.’ That’s why you see a lot of people dirty and tired. They don’t care about themselves no more.”

After years of hustling and succumbing to the effects of drug use, McDonald finally got clean when he was released from prison. “I came home and I decided, I’m gonna be about my kids,” he says. He now needs to get enough money to provide for his family. His eldest daughter is applying to Buffalo State University.

McDonald also takes his experience and applies it to current drug abusers. “Now I do these outsource meetings. Every Tuesday and Thursday I speak to young kids at 291 Elmwood.” He speaks about his own addictions and offers support to families in need.

“See, there’s a lot of kids in Hamburg that is very, very, very fucked up. They do different drugs out there man. They come here and buy it downtown on one of the nastiest fuckin’ streets,” McDonald says earnestly. “You could get murdered.”

To these young kids, McDonald represents a figure he could have benefited from as a young man. Giving a first hand account of his addiction, he hopes, will make some impact. He talks about these new drugs that are sweeping the streets with a weathered type of horror. A new painkiller that comes in the form of a patch called Fentanyl can be broken open and smoked. “It fucks them up real bad to the point where their parents have no control over them.”

McDonald still deals with the struggles of surviving his crack addiction. His reputation now, although clean, is still tainted by his past. “Some students that’s real students are real smooth. Some are… pure assholes when they get to drinkin’ and shit like that. People still call me crackhead sometimes and it makes me angry.” He says while shrugging. “I don’t say anything to ‘em…let them think what they want to think.”

Relating his experiences can only create a shadow of a picture of the life he’s led. His long struggle with addiction ultimately ended with a cry for help. His jail time made him reconsider his values and confront his demons. He’s now trying to live a good and decent life to provide for his family, while staying out of harm’s way. The Heights would be missing a piece of its animated puzzle if McDonald wasn’t around.

Although he doesn’t admit it, the toll of being kicked when you’re down can add up over time. “One time I went to somebody’s house and said, ‘It’s the can and bottle man!’ This girl said ‘Who is that?’ from inside.” Earl rubs his hands on his knees and cracks a smile. “Some guy said, ‘Oh, it ain’t no one but some crack head.’ He laughs heartily. “I just walked down them steps and I said, ‘Hell I was…but I ain’t a crackhead no more!’”