A nine-year-old White Rock, B.C., boy is proving you’re never too young to lend a helping hand.
Cruz Villanueva and his dad Joel were out for a walk on the city’s famous pier on Sunday morning when they spotted a hole and rotten plank beneath their feet.
“We didn’t want anyone to fall through, and my son looks at me and he says, ‘Papa we have to do something about this or someone’s really going to get hurt,'” Joel told Global News.
“We literally stopped three or four people from falling in it in just a few minutes — basically we had a nice gentleman that stayed there just to warn people while Cruz and I grabbed materials, and we ran down and just patched it up with some cones and some two-by-fours and he just went for it, he didn’t hesitate.”
The job took the duo about 10 minutes, and Cruz told Global News he was pretty happy with their handiwork.
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“It looks good, everyone is going around it, it’s pretty safe now,” he said.
“I didn’t want anyone to fall and get hurt. It was pretty dangerous, the whole board was rotting.”
White Rock’s 108-year-old pier requires constant maintenance, and newly-minted Mayor Megan Knight told Global News crews have already replaced 68 planks in the structure this year alone.
She had words of praise for Cruz, though said the city would prefer if people leave the repair work for the pros.
“I thought it was a really cute story and I thought well good for him, a sense of duty for his city, but it’s also something we don’t want to be going on,” she said.
“We want people to contact us directly and we will send people out to do the work.”
A portion of the pier suffered significant damage in December 2018 amid a powerful windstorm, requiring more than $4 million in interim repairs before it could be reopened to the public the following summer.
The total cost to repair and seismically upgrade the entire structure will be in the $15 million range, Knight said.
Joel did contact the city about the hole he and Cruz patched up, and Knight said city crews were being deployed to ensure the board is properly repaired or replaced.
“He’s a little handyman.” Joel said.
“I’m so proud of him. He’s got such a big heart and he loves the city of white rock and he loves the pier and he just loves people and wants to make sure nobody gets hurt.”
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