An 83-year-old Kansas woman spent 30 years driving open roads, picking up aluminum cans, in a single-handed effort to raise enough money to build a community swimming pool for the children in her home town of Eskridge. For more than three decades, Maisie DeVore gathered and delivered cans, scrap metal and car parts to a recycling facility. Can by can, year after year, she earned $73,000 and received a matching grant to raise the rest. Says Maisie, “If you really want something and pursue it with all your mind, you’ll get it done one way or another.” Here’s a video featuring her and the pick-up truck, and that Kansas can-do attitude… (1:51)
The pool shimmers across the street from Maisie’s home, having been completed on July 14, 2001. You may have seen the event on CBS’s Sunday Morning featuring a parade that attracted more than 1,000 people. As her dream project was consecrated with a ceremony, Maisie took the first step into the completed pool. Since that day, the summer attendance has averaged about 100 people a day.