A county park employee, Simplicia Tugade has been cleaning up Salt Pond Beach Park with a smile for 28 years.
And she was recently praised and recognized by a houseless member who lives there.
Pauletta Cole has lived in her white van at Salt Pond Beach Park for a year in a half, and said she sees Tugade working six days a week, working hard every day, and going beyond her job duties.
“She goes and gets that big lawnmower around here and cleans up the back,” Cole said. “I’ve seen her come back at six o’clock at night because she’s afraid she forgot to put toilet paper in one of the bathrooms. And so she carries extra toilet paper so she can come back and make sure that everybody has toilet paper.”
Cole said there are times she seen at least 20 families at Salt Pond Beach Park just having a good time.
“A lot of them clean up after themselves, but they never cleaned up perfectly,” Cole said. “And she just smiles before she cleans their mess.”
Cole said Simplicia told her she has seen little children who have seen her every year grow up.
“Now they’re adults,” Cole said. “And they come here and the first thing they want to do is come and see Simplicia. Because she’s so sweet. And I see them bring food for her, sometimes she has two or three platters of food.”
Cole said she has watched Simplicia hose down the bathrooms, deal with difficult people, and seen her pick up cigarette butts. She also said she sees Simplicia come to work every morning at 5:30 a.m. with her head flashlight, ready to work.
“Honestly, I’ve never known anyone who has lived in gratitude, and lives in the moment and forgives in each moment,” Cole said. “The way she does, I am in awe of her. To me, she’s a spiritual guru because she honestly forgives every day this stuff.
“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I start crying because she’s such a good woman. She just gets up every day and comes back and does the same thing over and over.”
Tugade is ecstatic to be recognized for her all of her hard work.
“I feel so happy that somebody had seen my work,” Tugade said. “It makes me stronger and gives me more motivation to work harder to maintain the parks.”
She spends a whole day cleaning pavilions, restrooms from being trashed, toilet spills and graffiti.
“I do cover all the graffiti that they do,” Tugade said. “But I had to prioritize to make time. Whenever I get a chance, then I will. But sometimes it’s hard because the graffiti is everywhere, not only here at the pavilion, but it is worse by the tennis court or restaurant pavilion. The place is terrible.”
One of the tough days on the job was the day someone broke one of the toilets in one of the comfort stations, and there was toilet paper all over the walls and ceiling of the building.
“It took me the entire day to clean up,” Tugade said. “It also took another couple weeks for them to re-install a new toilet.”
She said it’s disheartening when she sees people refusing to care for their island, and said it would be better if people avoided doing things like ransacking the bathrooms.
“It’s too hard for everybody. And it makes the county pay more,” she said.
Tugade said her key to success is starting the day being happy.
“I have to, because if you are not happy and doing jobs, you can’t accomplish nothing,” Tugade said. “Just like if you thinking of something that you know, bothering you, no more strength to do the job.”
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Stephanie Shinno, education and business reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or sshinno@thegardenisland.com.
