Young entrepreneurs wanted

It’s an origin story you hear a lot in the green industry — a young high schooler starts mowing lawns in their hometown for some extra money and then one day, they’re running larger, sometimes multi-million dollar, businesses.

That’s the path that Gary Szymczak hopes his young mentees take by participating in The Lawnmower Project — a nonprofit Szymczak founded to give lawn mowers to underprivileged youth in the Indianapolis area and teach them how to run their own landscaping business.

Something old turns into something new

“About five years ago, I was just driving down the street and saw a push mower that someone had put out on the curb for someone to take,” Szymczak recalls. “So, I picked it up thinking I could probably fix that. I’ve never been super mechanical, but between Google and YouTube, I was able to get it up and running.

“Then, about a week later I was driving again and saw another mower that someone had given up on,” he adds. “So, I picked it up to fix. Honestly, it was just something to do at the time.”

Szymczak says because he enjoyed fixing the lawn mowers so much, he kept picking up abandoned ones on the side of the road. But as much as he loved the challenge of getting them up and running, he knew there had to be a bigger purpose in his efforts.

“I have a small city lawn, and I already had a mower, so I started thinking, ‘What am I going to do with three lawn mowers?’” Szymczak says. “I knew I could probably sell them for $50 a piece or maybe even more, but I’d rather give them to some kid who can use it to go and cut lawns and make money.”

That’s how The Lawnmower Project was founded. Though in its early days, Szymczak says he wouldn’t have imagined it’d become what it is today as interest was hard to find early on.

“Originally I just made a Facebook page and never thought it’d be a full fledge nonprofit,” he admits. “I came up with the name The Lawnmower Project because this became my little project to see if I could fix these mowers, get them going again and then find some kids and give it to them. Initially, it was just going to be that simple.”

Despite the slow start though, Szymczak says donations started pouring in from community members who had old, unwanted lawn mowers.

“People loved the idea and people started donating mowers,” he says.

Unearthing eager entrepreneurs

So, with all these lawn mowers being donated to the cause, the need for active participants became even greater.

“I learned quickly, and continue to learn, that the hardest thing about this is finding kids who want to do it,” Szymczak says. “I got very few kids in the beginning — honestly, at the very beginning, I didn’t have any.”

Szymczak says he’s been going to local church groups, after-school programs and schools to find interested young entrepreneurs.

“We were going to high schools and talking with groups of kids who are at-risk,” he says. “These are the kids who are getting ready to either flunk out or get kicked out.”

When someone is interested, Szymczak says the first step is having them fill out a job application and a questionnaire along with getting a permission slip signed by a parent or guardian.

“You know, sometimes it’s like we get 20 kids who sign up, 10 kids who get their paperwork in, five kids who show up and maybe one or two who stick with it,” he says of any given year.

Once a student comes on board, Szymczak says he and a few others volunteer as mentors to show them the ropes and what it takes to start a successful company.

“We give them a free mower; they get to name their business whatever they want and we print them off business cards and their first fliers,” he explains. “We also put them through a two-hour orientation to teach them mower safety and the basics on how to mow and how to interact with your customers. We always teach them how to open a checking account, how to send an invoice, what it would take to accept credit card payments and all that stuff, too.”

In total, The Lawnmower Project has given mowers to 18 students since its inception.

“We’ve had 12 different kids throughout the years who’ve had varying success — but we keep up on them,” he says. “It’s 100% their business and their money… They are welcome to stay in the program from year-to-year as long as they want. This season, we had four come back from the previous year and have two more new businesses.”

For Szymczak, it’s the old parable “Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime” that he’s trying to instill through this nonprofit.

“We need to tell them how to fish, where to fish, but not fish for them,” he says. “We had a couple kids who’ve come and got their mower, and we haven’t heard from them since. If they want to sell their fishing pole — that’s fine.”

In addition to teaching them the basics on how to do business, Szymczak says he’s also started mentoring some students on the mechanical side of mower repair.

“I have an in-shop program as well, where they learn basic mechanics,” he says. “I have one kid who doesn’t want to cut lawns, but I’ve taught him how to clean carburetors, and trouble shoot and all that. He’s learned a lot.”

A passion project turned profession

These in-shop lessons take place at Szymczak’s business Broad Ripple Mower Repair — something else he says that he was led to by a serendipitous turn of events.

Szymczak has been delivering pizzas for over 10 years now and still does. But as The Lawnmower Project was taking off, he connected with Matt Green, CEO of Indianapolis’ Blue Duck Lawn Care, who previously owned Broad Ripple.

“Matt had some warehouse space that he offered me to use to work on some mowers and store them there,” Szymczak recalls, which eventually lead to Szymczak taking it over.

Green still sits on the board of directors for the nonprofit as well and Szymczak says he’s been vital to the success it’s had.

Now, not only is he repairing mowers by day at Broad Ripple, but Szymczak is continuing to run The Lawnmower Project and mentor the next generation of green industry business owners.

“I feel like I finally found my passion,” he says. “It’s created the career that I’ve always looked for. I feel like I’ve finally found my calling.”

While delivering pizzas and having numerous sales jobs over the years, Szymczak says The Lawnmower Project has never felt like work.

“I used to be a clock watcher when I had a desk job, but now there aren’t enough minutes or hours in the day to do all I want to do,” he says. “It’s great — I love it.”

Pushing forward

According to Szymczak, the sky’s the limit in terms of The Lawnmower Project’s future. He says that as long as he continues to find interested young people that are eager to start their own business, he’ll have mowers readily available to them while also being there to lend a hand.

“Right now, it’s about keeping these kids and trying to get them more business and seeing how we can help them grow,” he says.

The nonprofit is also looking to expand its outreach and visibility in the community to hopefully bring in more students.

“We’re always thinking of new ways to get kids for next year’s class,” he says. “We want to go to some job fairs at schools and have booths and local events.”

Eventually, Szymczak says he’d like to expand the program by offering his young people work opportunities in the wintertime — despite a lack of snow the last few winters in Indianapolis.

“Maybe we get to the point where we have snowblowers available for the kids, too,” he says.

The author is an associate editor with Lawn & Landscape.