Lessons learned, lives transformed at Lawn Life

Tim Arnold grew up in Seven Hills—a suburb that he says was filled with poverty and crime. 

“My mom was a very wonderful mom, but we didn’t have a lot, and it didn’t take long before I turned to crime and other avenues to get what things I wanted in life that couldn’t be provided for me,” Arnold says. “I was charged my first felony when I was 11 years old and joined a gang when I was 12 years old. The only thing I knew for most of my young life was the thug life.” 

Arnold says it wasn’t until he was about 25 years old that he learned the value of hard work—something he says wasn’t clarified or properly taught within the confines of the neighborhood in which he grew up.  

“It’s really just exemplified as hustling without getting caught, and you know, a lot of these things you don’t see until hindsight—I can tell you that much—when you’re in the trenches, working under those precepts, it’s definitely your way of life,” Arnold says.

But when Arnold was 25, he says something just clicked. 

“I had a personal epiphany,” Arnold says. “I decided to apply for a job, and not just apply filling out applications, but to apply myself to a job—I had never had a real meaningful job up until that point. I had been in and out of detention centers, after juvenile halls, after probation stints and said I was going to give this one a real honest try and was really sincere about it.” 

So Arnold began work at a steel mill in Carthage where he invested himself completely in learning a trade while also learning valuable life lessons. 

Arnold says he quickly became a favorite, started working more hours, began making more money and ended up saving enough to buy a house that he flipped and sold for a $50,000 profit in just three short months. 

At the steel mill, he watched the plumbers and the electricians, and followed them around taking in as much knowledge as he could—learning skills that he never learned when growing up—and he began flipping more houses.  

“I realized there’s a lot of money to be made in these physical trades. When I was rehabbing that first house, I’d go to the corner store and see a guy there—a kid, 16 years old—you’ve seen them too, with a gas can. ‘Can I get a dollar man?’ Nah, come cut the grass of the house I’m fixing up. And you can get ten dollars instead of one. And if you’re good, you can help the plumber out, carry all his supplies,” Arnold says. “And that very first kid realized the value of hard work because he started making hundreds of dollars with me, and he stayed with me for a couple years and went on to work at P&G—a homeless kid on the street corners that I picked up, ended up with P&G.” 

Since that first kid five years ago, Arnold says he’s since hired almost 420 others at Lawn Life—a nonprofit he founded to provide work opportunities and knowledge to at-risk youth. 

“I hope to teach them some type of transferable skill they can carry on with them so that I can effectively be that stepping stone into the workforce for them,” Arnold says. “And I just love it so much.”