Meet the 71-year-old newspaper carrier who donates her paycheques to a local school

Seventy-one-year-old Jean MacLean loves walking her paper route. She's up at 4 a.m., six days a week, to meet the delivery truck, bundle up her papers and head out for a two-hour, 10-kilometre walk.

"I'm so fortunate to have my health and I really enjoy doing this. I just love the morning walk," MacLean said.

"The city is so beautiful this time of the day. I know it's asleep, but it's still beautiful."

Along with her paper route, MacLean also collects cans and bottles from her neighbours at Duvar Court, the seniors' apartment building where she lives in Charlottetown.

She doesn't do this because she needs the money. All the money she is paid for the paper route and from the recycling is donated to St. Jean Elementary School.

For MacLean, it's a gesture related to a dream she had as a child.

"If you were to have asked me when I was young what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a teacher forever.… And when I graduated from Grade 12 and I went to my father, he said, 'We just can't afford it,'" she said.

"I was the oldest of seven. And so I never did get to be a teacher and I really feel that me doing this is kind of having that dream come true."

When she got the paper route she investigated the three schools near where she lives, and chose St. Jean Elementary as the best candidate.

In the last five years, MacLean and her friends have given the school $15,091.81.

Books and comfy chairs

Jon Bromley, a behaviour resource and phys-ed teacher at St. Jean Elementary, sees the impact Jean's gift has on the school, especially in the library.

"Our students love to come here," said Bromley.

"It's a very calm place, inviting. Jean's helped us to buy the furniture for the library, comfortable chairs, and our selection of books has increased over the years."

Grade 5 student Riley Squires said the library is a place he finds calm on a busy school day and he's grateful to Jean for all she's done to enhance it.

"It's amazing" he said.

"She's helped make the school a better place."

That gratitude is felt by all the school's students and staff, Bromley said.

"She's an incredible person," he said.

"The students, I can express for them and they're just so grateful for what Jean's done for us, and the fact that she takes time out of her day to do those things to support us here."

'Always try to do your best'

Bromley sees the way Jean's generosity is teaching the students about the importance of giving back, and that lesson is greater than any dollar amount.

"They can do their part to make the world a better place," he said.

"Jean's done that for us here at St. Jean, and just such a lesson and such a role model for them to know that they can go into the world, and even in our own school committee, and do the same thing."

Grade 4 student Sydney Macdonald is learning that lesson.

"She's really nice and she really likes kids," she said.

"It's like education. I think she's trying to say that you should always try to do your best in what you can do."

MacLean refuses to take sole credit for what has been achieved at the school — she counts the people on her route as contributors.

She wants it made clear that she is just one of a number of people who are all contributing to this special cause. Between the paper route and recycling, it all adds up.

"There's so many people — just think if you got all the people that are involved in this you'd have over 100," she said. 

"And that's another thing that's beautiful."

More P.E.I. news