If you see Reverend Matt Overton driving around Vancouver, chances are, you’ll see him hauling his truck and trailer full of rakes, shovels, garbage cans and other landscaping tools. He’s likely heading out to one of the Mowtown Teen Lawn Care job sites and he might even have one of his high-school age crew members with him.
Overton is a full-time associate pastor of youth and family ministries at Columbia Presbyterian Church in Vancouver and when he set out to do ministry in Clark County, he didn’t necessarily expect to create a social enterprise. However, after he and his wife bought a fixer-upper in Camas and they started having teens and adults in the church stop by to help out with the renovations, he recognized that many of the interactions with them were life-giving. Young people and their families were coming together and were using their gifts and skills to help, and the idea was born: why not create a business that allowed him to work directly with these kids, mentoring and teaching them basic career and life skills along the way?
Three years ago, the company was officially founded and today there are six people who work directly for Mowtown.
“We are probably the only landscaping company where you can get your landscaping needs met and impact your local community,” said Overton. “So far, 100 percent of our profit goes back into the program that we run. I don’t know who else can say that their business does that.”
The response
Overton shared that customers have been excited to benefit the community around them while receiving a great service in exchange.
“In many cases, I think folks who might not have otherwise paid to have their landscaping taken care of have done so because they know they’re benefiting teens and young adults in our county,” he said.
Local businesses have also been supportive. Shorty’s Nursery has sent Mowtown a number of customers, Parkrose Hardware has helped service their equipment at a lower cost, and some local real estate agents have been known to use them for one-time clean ups or by providing referrals to new home buyers.
In addition, Overton said local schools are taking notice.
“Schools are showing interest in our program since they are starting to recognize that their students need a number of skills that are hard to provide in the classroom, given all the other educational requirements they have,” he said.
Mowtown has even received national recognition and earlier this year, they were awarded a $10,000 Innovation Award from Duke University for what’s deemed “Traditioned Innovation.”
Looking forward
The latest venture for Overton is creating a parallel 501c3 organization called the Columbia Future Forge (www.thecolumbiafutureforge.net) that is responsible for training and mentoring. Students that work for Mowtown undergo four life skills trainings in a year, where they cover professionalism, personal goal setting, personality/gifts assessment and money management.
“Our hope is that five to ten years from now, we might have several small businesses that employ students directly and that we can create partnerships with other local businesses that are looking to employ some of the members and graduates of our program,” Overton said.
Currently, there are nine students in the training program.
Mowtown Teen Lawn Care has a website under development that will be completed soon. For more information or to find out what projects they’re working on, search for them on Facebook.
