“Although this center has been like my second home for the past 10 years, I have kept it mostly a secret.”
Her mother leaves at dawn and comes back 12 hours later with a shopping cart of cans. The daughter started helping at 12 and hid it from classmates for a decade. Nickel deposits pay for this family’s life in Bushwick. The city that throws the cans away depends on people it pretends not to see.