+
upworthy
More

Cops were called on him — for mowing a lawn. Now his business is booming.

On June 23, Lucille Holt spotted a boy named Reggie and his siblings outside a dollar store with lawn care equipment.

"To see him with everything, to be that equipped, it caught my attention," the 51-year-old told BuzzFeed News.

She asked Reggie and his siblings if they'd be interested in mowing her lawn in Maple Heights, Ohio, just south of Cleveland. They agreed.

[rebelmouse-image 19397411 dam="1" original_size="534x727" caption="Reggie and his little brother. All photos courtesy of Mr. Reggie's Lawn Cutting Service." expand=1]Reggie and his little brother. All photos courtesy of Mr. Reggie's Lawn Cutting Service.


So impressed by their work ethic, Holt took a video of them from her front door. In it, she commented that "he's struggling a little" as Reggie pushed the mower over a bump in the grass. "But he's doing his thing." That's when things took a turn.

A neighbor saw Reggie and his siblings in action. And she called the police.

The neighbor, a white woman, had been concerned the kids were trespassing on her property.

"Who does that?" Holt is heard saying in another video she recorded after the police arrived, claiming the neighbor once called the police because her kids were throwing snowballs. “Who calls the police for everything?

White people, apparently.

The incident in Maple Heights is just the latest in a string of stories documenting white people calling the police on black people for doing mundane things. In June, "Permit Patty" called the cops on an 8-year-old black girl for selling water outside her apartment building. Earlier this spring, "BBQ Becky" reported a group of black people lawfully having a cookout in a public park. In April, a Philadelphia Starbucks employee infamously called the police on two black men for visiting the store without immediately purchasing any food or drinks.

(White people, we seriously need to get it together.)

Similarly to these other incidents, Reggie's story started spreading far and wide. And lots of people were outraged.

Reggie's mom shared Holt's video on Facebook, adding that "this is what happens when your kids are doing positive things in Maple [Heights]. The police show up."

Fortunately, plenty of people in Ohio — and across the country — turned that outrage into positive action.

Knowing Reggie had wanted to expand his lawn-cutting business, Holt launched a GoFundme page.

It started with just a $1,000 goal for Reggie to get a shed to store his equipment and to buy other lawn supplies. But since its launch, more than $37,000 has been raised.

The comment section, by the way, is pure delight.

"What an amazing young man!" one supporter wrote. "You’re an inspiration! Good luck."

"Please don't let small-minded, petty people ruin your spirit," a supporter noted. "You are a good kid with a good work ethic and a bright future. You can help change the world for the better."

"Way to go kiddos!!!!!" another chimed in. "Don't let anyone or anything ever get into the way of your dreams!!!"

The funds are helping transform Mr. Reggie's Lawn Cutting Service into a flourishing business serving the Cleveland area.

The business' Facebook page is filled with glowing reviews, videos of Reggie and his siblings putting in the work, and before-and-after shots of the lawns Reggie's mowed.

"I'm so very proud of my son," Reggie's mom told Fox 13 News. "I think it is so amazing how everyone is so supportive from all over the country."

A Maple Heights police officer visited Reggie to congratulate him on his business success.

She said all the support has inspired Reggie to dream bigger — once focused solely on mowing grass, the 12-year-old now hopes to expand his business to include raking leaves in the fall and snow-blowing during winter.

Reggie says he wants to turn all this positivity into actual results.

"I just want to thank everyone for all the kind words and all the support," he says. "It really makes me want to succeed."

Learn more about Mr. Reggie's Lawn Cutting Service on Facebook.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less

A guy passes out on his bed eating pizza.

A 29-year-old woman had a baby girl, and after a brief maternity leave, she had to return to work. She couldn't afford childcare, so her husband, 35, reluctantly agreed to watch the baby while she was at work.

“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021,” the woman wrote on Reddit’s AITA subforum. “He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way. I was nervous about leaving her home with her father, but I had no choice.”

The mother had reason to be worried about leaving her baby home alone with her husband, but in the beginning, things seemed fine. “When I came back from work, she was clean and sleeping. The next few times I came home, he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy,” she wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less

A boy doing the dishes.

A 41-year-old mom with 3 boys, 12-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old, pays them $10 daily to do their chores. However, their pay is deducted $10 if they miss a day. The boys have to do their tasks 5 days a week, although it doesn’t matter which days they choose to work.

“This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores,” the mom wrote on Reddit.

Her 12-year-old son was getting ready to play Fortnite with a friend and told him he’d be ready in 15 minutes once he finished his chores. When the boys started playing the game, he told the friend he was in charge of dusting and sweeping the stairs, to which the friend responded, “It’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.”

After learning what the friend said, the mom told her son that chores are genderless.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

Keep ReadingShow less

Derrick Downey Jr. has been dubbed the 'squirrel whisperer.'

Most of us who live in the U.S. are used to looking out a window or walking out our front door and seeing squirrels. The cute, fluffy-tailed rodents often appear perfectly pettable, but they generally scamper away when humans get too close.

That is not the case for TikTok creator Derrick Downey Jr., however, as he has not only befriended his neighborhood squirrels but goes all out to help them live their best squirrel lives.

Downey shared a video in May of 2022 in which he chats with a couple of squirrels on his porch while feeding them and offering them water. That video received over 26 million views and kicked off a whole series of videos showcasing the adorable antics of Richard, Maxine, Hector, Consuela, Norma (may she rest in peace), and Hood Rat Raymond. He's built Richard a house, rescued Maxine's babies, mourned Norma's transition (to wherever squirrels go when they die) and more.

People can't get enough, and who can blame them? Squirrels are the best (when they're not tearing up your patio furniture and stealing cotton for their nest, as Downey has experienced.)

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Voice recordings of people who were enslaved offer incredible first-person accounts of U.S. history

"The results of these digitally enhanced recordings are arresting, almost unbelievable. The idea of hearing the voices of actual slaves from the plantations of the Old South is as powerful—as startling, really—as if you could hear Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee speak." - Ted Koppel

Library of Congress

When we think about the era of American slavery, many of us tend to think of it as the far distant past. While slavery doesn't exist as a formal institution today, there are people living who knew formerly enslaved black Americans first-hand. In the wide arc of history, the legal enslavement of people on U.S. soil is a recent occurrence—so recent, in fact, that we have voice recordings of interviews with people who lived it.

Keep ReadingShow less