Newcomer cleaning up Sunset Avenue

ASHEBORO — If you’ve noticed that downtown Asheboro is looking a bit cleaner these days, you can thank Jeane Torrence.

She has lived in Asheboro just four and a half months but she’s already making an impression on Sunset Avenue. Once or twice a week, she can be seen picking up trash on both sides of the street.

“Why are people throwing stuff out in such a beautiful place?” she wanted to know recently. She had stopped to talk, holding on to her plastic trash bag and long-handled grabber. “I do what I can when I have a little time.”

Torrence said that she moved here from the Town of Badin, looking for a cheaper home. She found it on Sunset Avenue near the interstate interchange.

“I love to walk,” she said. “It’s good exercise. I stop and talk to everybody when I walk my dog, a border collie. But she doesn’t like the heat.”

Torrence’s father was an Air Force captain who moved around quite a bit. While she says she’s mainly from Virginia — she went to high school in Richmond — she has lived in a number of states.

“I like California, but it’s very crowded,” she said. “This is just right.”

From her home at the west end of Sunset Avenue, Torrence picks up trash all the way to Fayetteville Street. If you see her cleaning the sidewalks, give her a wave of thanks.

And, for heaven's sake, don’t litter.