A child handed Danny Lowe a flower as Lowe worked his morning crossing guard shift near the East End Community School in Portland last Wednesday. Families from the school were there that morning celebrating Lowe and the care he takes of the children. Lowe, who has autism, has worked as a crossing guard for seven years. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Standing 6-foot-5, with his hair pulled back in a hot-pink scrunchie and a palm-sized, purple-painted scallop shell dangling from his neck, crossing guard Danny Lowe is impossible to miss at the intersection of North Street and Walnut Street.

His arm raised high, holding his stop sign with pride, Lowe has stood at his post near East End Community School every school day for the past seven years.

As children hurry across the crosswalk, often calling out, “Thank you, Danny,” Lowe stands firm, a gentle giant shielding them from oncoming traffic and harm.

It’s a job he does with tremendous pride. He says he wants to be “the best crossing guard in Maine.”

“Danny never calls out sick. He’ll be there during a snow day because he doesn’t listen to the radio,” said Billy Jack Goodwin, Lowe’s direct support professional in the AIM program of  Port Resources, a South Portland nonprofit. “If I don’t call him in the morning and say, ‘Hey, Dan, they canceled school today,’ he would go out in the blizzard and stand there waiting for kids to come.”

Wren Disorbo, 8, a second-grader at East End Community School, holds a thank you sign for crossing guard Danny Lowe last Wednesday, when people came out to celebrate Lowe’s work. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

AIM stands for Achieving Independence in Maine, and the program helps young adults on the autism spectrum develop the social and life skills they need to live independently.

Over the past 10 years, with Goodwin’s help, Lowe has transitioned from living at home with his parents to residing in AIM housing to moving out and living independently, as he has done since 2014.

Last week, East End Community School honored its beloved crossing guard with a celebration of his work.

It was organized by Lauren Ostis, the school’s community coordinator. They’d marked Teacher Appreciation Week and Administrative Assistants Day, and Ostis thought it was time to honor another vital leader in the community.

On Tuesday afternoon, around 30 students and their families met to decorate Lowe’s intersection with sidewalk chalk.

The following morning, Lowe rode to his post on the electric scooter he calls Night Fury and was welcomed by cheering students and families holding signs with his name on them and blasting “Hakuna Matata.”

He didn’t let down his guard in the crosswalk as he took in the celebration. He made sure no child crossed the street without his help.

“Just because it is a special day, it doesn’t mean I can just give out on my job,” he said, as students handed him thank you notes, packages of animal stickers and drawings.

Danny Lowe reacts after walking up to his Wednesday morning crossing guard shift and seeing families there to celebrate him, near the East End Community School. Families from the school were there that morning celebrating Lowe’s recent win of Maine’s Crossing Guard of the Year. Lowe, who has autism, has worked as a crossing guard for seven years. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographe

“He’s been here for my son’s entire elementary school experience, so he’s been a very consistent face in his whole school journey,” said Sadie Bliss.”As a parent, just knowing that there’s somebody here and knowing who it is, and that it’s been the same guy forever, is great.”

Everyone can see how seriously Lowe takes his job. This year, after being nominated by his supervisor, Cricket Klein, he was named Portland’s Crossing Guard of the Year by the city’s chapter of All City Management Services (ACMS), the nation’s largest provider of school crossing guards.

F. Heath Gorham, Portland’s interim chief of police, and Mayor Kate Snyder came to his apartment to present him with a key to the city and honor his work in the community.

“He’s very proud of the community that he serves. … He takes care of everybody in the community, and in addition to that, he’s just a very gracious and positive person,” said Klein, his supervisor. “He has an impeccable attendance record. I don’t think that he’s called out once this year. He’s the type of worker that all the companies seek out. Everybody wants a worker like Danny.”

Despite his accolades, Lowe remains humble.

“I think all the crossing guards here do a good job, so I’m not gonna rub it in,” he said after the crosswalk celebration. “You saw how Gaston in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ would rub things in people’s faces and how that made them feel, so I’m not going to do that.”

In his apartment, Lowe has a DVD collection that boasts 420 films.

Danny Lowe pulls out a DVD from his extensive collection at his apartment after working his morning crossing guard shift near the East End Community School. He loves movies, especially Disney movies, for the morals and life lessons he finds in them. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Lowe’s love for movies, and most especially Disney movies, comes from his ability to extrapolate their morals, using them as a guide to understanding his experiences and feelings.

“I love them for the valuable lessons that they teach,” Lowe said. “My favorite is ‘Abominable’ because of the moral: Always have hope.”

Goodwin, who has worked with him for so long, watched him gain confidence and grow more and more self-motivated to succeed.

Lowe has called high school in South Portland “a nightmare.” His teachers weren’t always equipped to serve his needs. As an adolescent, he was often told what he couldn’t do, not shown what he could, Goodwin says. He was in his early 20s when Goodwin met him, wearing Velcro shoes. It is likely that a teacher told him that tying his shoes was too difficult and that it would be easier to avoid learning how. After years of being told that everyday tasks were beyond him, Lowe’s self-confidence was nonexistent.

Together, Lowe and Goodwin have worked to build it up and to boost him into the fruitful independence he now enjoys.

“When I met him, he was just a shell of a person, and it has just been amazing to see a person develop into a fully fledged individual,” Goodwin said. “Years ago, he wouldn’t want anyone to look at him. But now he’s almost narcissistic.”

When Goodwin and Lowe began working together, Lowe painted a life-size portrait of a blond, blue-eyed, purple-eyebrowed person named Ryan – the man he said he wanted to become. Since then, he has found his own identity, but Ryan remains tacked to Lowe’s bedroom door, a reminder of the distance he has traveled.

Thank you notes from children hang on the cabinets in crossing guard Danny Lowe’s kitchen. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

“The purple eyebrows would look kind of silly on me anyway,” Lowe said as she showed off his living space – the key to the city hanging on the wall along with dozens of notes and cards from grateful students and families.

“This will mean so much to Dan. He won’t be able to sleep for a week,” Goodwin said of the crosswalk celebration. “I’ll get 100 phone calls from him going, ‘Oh my God, you remember the other day? You remember when I was on the news?’ He’s going to be running on love. That’s what he does.”

Lowe’s career as a crossing guard has not always been easy. When he started out eight years ago at the busy intersection of Congress and State streets, Goodwin would drive by and see him hiding behind the statue of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, overwhelmed by the city scene.

A note taped to the front door of crossing guard Danny Lowe’s apartment reminds him of his shifts and to keep on going. It features a favorite quote from the movie “Finding Nemo.” Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Once he moved to his current post, Lowe found tremendous success and pride in his work and personal growth.

“Like Dory says in ‘Finding Nemo,’ ‘Just keep swimming,’” Lowe said.

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