Collier County janitor goes above and beyond for Boy and Girls Club

At 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Marco Guevara welcomes students to the Boys and Girls Club in Collier County.

“When he walks into the door, everybody’s like ‘It’s Marco!’ And everybody automatically smiles,” said 17-year-old Marlyn Valdes.

The kids there all know him. And what does he do?

“I don’t have any title like a lawyer or a doctor, but I can be a good person and I do a job,” Guevara said. “They need somebody to clean.”

He’s one of the school janitors. With a mop and bucket, he’s somehow etched himself into these kids’ lives.

“He’s a sweetheart,” Valdes said.

His boss, Deryl Patterson, facilities director of the Boys and Girls Clun Collier County, says Guevara is always the first to step up, especially when the pandemic hit and shut down the club. The first concern was where those children would get hot meals.

“He does a lot of things that are not in his job description,” Patterson said. “He’s there for me and the club all the time.”

“I get a call from my supervisor, and he said ‘Marco, we have to do meals for the people,'” Guevara said.

Marco and a team spent the weekends delivering hundreds of meals all over Collier County to make sure children stayed fed until the club reopened.

“You have to give love,” Guevara said. “You have to extend your hand when somebody needs it.”