TOLEDO, Ohio — Getting back on your feet in newly-found sobriety means someone has to be willing to give you a chance. A local recovery center is offering that chance by providing lawn care jobs.
Marvin Cowden ran Heavenly Cut lawn care for seven years.
"It started with just me and my neighbor and without even marketing it, just by doing a good service and a good product, it turned into 28 accounts," Cowden said.
But there were times Cowden never thought he'd enjoy that type of success.
"I've been clean, like, 22 years now," he said. "So 22 years ago I was living in an abandoned warehouse on Woodruff Street in downtown Toledo."
Now, Cowden said he's accomplished a lot as a business owner and it's time to turn it over.
Enter Matt Bell, also now living a life of sobriety and heading up Team Recovery.
"Services are expanding. We've got a lot of properties. We're either gonna pay somebody else to take care of our properties or we can bring that in house and take care of our own properties and employ some people in recovery," Bell said.
Team Recovery focuses on vocational life skills; helping people in recovery re-learn how to become productive members of society.
RELATED: Toledo organizations working together to meet goal of reducing opioid deaths by 40% in 3 years
"Budgeting and getting your first paycheck and not being triggered to call the drug dealer. We're really gonna hold people's hands while they're getting their lives back," Bell said.
For some, that first paycheck may come after getting the yard work done. Heavenly Cut, which is now known as Prime Asset Management under the Team Recovery umbrella, will provide jobs for about a handful of people to start. The jobs include lawn care, but also some maintenance work for its sober living housing. These opportunities are something that means a lot to Cowden.
"In what we do, there's not enough success stories. And we need more," Cowden said.
It hits home for Cowden and not just because he previously battled addiction.
"About three years ago I lost my son to addiction," Cowden said.
His son Anthony Cowden was 28 years old when he died.
"I knew Anthony," Bell said. "He was a great guy. A really, really good guy. And like we hear all too often, he passed."
Cowden calls this new business transaction "divine intervention."
"So I think it was God opening that door and sometimes you have to walk through it and it was my time to pass it on," Cowden said.
And with each lawn mowed, others may get the chance they need to get back on their feet and enjoy life's successes and also beat the stigma.
"If we can give someone their first job in recovery. If we can mow people's homes in recovery. If we can mow someone's home and show individuals, people in recovery aren't who you think they are," Bell said.
"If we can save one life, we're great. If we can save 10, we're fantastic. If we can save 100, we're on our way," Cowden said.
More on WTOL: