School custodian honors veterans by cleaning headstones
FRESNO, CA -- After working eight hours as a head custodian at a school, Damian Carranza is off to his second job of the day-- this one, though, he is doing for free.
Carranza's assignment is a local cemetery-- cleaning a headstone of a veteran.
"Today I'm going to do Ottis E. Conley Sr. I would say it hasn't been done since it was put it in-- when was that? 2005."
The idea for Carranza came when a friend challenged him to the 22 push up challenge-- you have likely seen it on social media.
But Carranza said he wanted to step outside the box and do something different.
"My initial thought when they nominated me for the challenge was that I wanted to maybe visit a veteran at a VA hospital get to know a little bit about them, and then I thought I have the perfect platform-- I clean headstones I can do a veteran every day."
And now Carranza is on day five.
"It's a good feeling-- I'm doing something good for a family. I get to learn a little bit about that veteran."
The task at hand is tedious, but this Central Valley man does it with care; even taking time to bring to focus the veteran by making their names stand out.
"Putting back in condition like most of these-- you can only do so many though do what I could."
Carranza pays his respects to one of our nation's hero he spent nearly an hour with-- in this case a US Navy and US Army vet who now has a newly restored headstone-- from a man who is making his rounds to celebrate another vet the same way.
"It brings joy to know that I'm bringing joy to somebody else's life."
