Before the sun rises, Elvira and Joe Villanueva are already scouring Airline Road — not looking for treasure, but searching for trash.
"At the beginning when we started picking up cans there were some people saying 'Man you guys are crazy,'" Joe Villanueva said.
But what seems crazy to some has become routine for the pair. Every morning for 21 years, the Villanuevas wake up at 5 a.m. and canvass their neighborhood, looking for stray cans to collect for money and cleaning up trash along the way.
It was 2005 when their doctor told them they needed to walk more because of high blood pressure. Early on, though, the couple discovered that walking just to walk wasn't their speed.
"And I thought 'This is no fun.' So we pick up a can here a can there and thought 'Okay let's pick up cans,'" Elvira Villanueva said.
After more than two decades of trash pickup, the two have made some friends along the way — including neighbors who honk in recognition during their morning route.
"That's another one... Good morning! That's another person who knows us," Elvira said as a passerby honked.
Their biggest supporters, however, are a hungry group of cats outside Saint Pius X Catholic Church.
"One comes out and then the others... we call them our little gang and they start coming out a block away. They go and meet us," Joe said.
The Villanuevas cash in the cans they find, but they say it's not about the money.
"We get approached by some people they want to give us money. Well c'mon we don't want to take your money. We don't do it for people to give us money or nothing," Joe said.
And while the couple are in their 70s, they say they don't plan to stop anytime soon.
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