CLEVELAND — With a staff mainly made up of people returning to life after serving time behind bars, a property management company in Cleveland is working to provide employees more than just a paycheck.

 

What You Need To Know

  • CleveLawn is a nonprofit creating a positive change in the community by hiring returning citizens

  • By providing paychecks and life skills training, the organization is teaching former convicts how to be productive members of society

  • The company provides landscaping and property management/renovation services, overseeing nearly 250 county properties alone


Paul Fitzpatrick is a Cleveland native, and as a teen, he spent a lot of time on the streets. He went on to serve in the Marines, then his life took a different turn.

“I did 18 and a half years,” he said. “I was never supposed to come home.”

Fitzpatrick was handed a 43- to 100-year sentence following felony convictions for aggravated robbery, burglary and arson.

“You can’t say you're sorry, and you can’t change what you’ve done, but if I can take people who are in that space or are heading in that space and use my experiences and be honest about it and be measured by it all the time, keep it alive, I do my victims justice,” he said.

After serving his sentence and turning his life around, he now heads CleveLawn, building a business maintaining properties, lots and landscaping around the county.

“I’m in the business of changing the business,” he explained.

As executive director of the nonprofit, Fitzpatrick gives others who’ve been released from prison a means to make a fresh start.

“I don’t believe in giving any man or woman a fish,” he said. “I believe we teach them to fish. You know? I don’t give them nothing. Because when you give it to them, that’s what they’re used to.”

Fitzpatrick leads by example and teaches job and life skills to those returning to society, like his Administrative Assistant Virgen Caraballo.

“I’ve learned something about myself, where I learn better under pressure,” she said.

Caraballo never worked with a computer before joining CleveLawn.

“I wake up in the morning, and I’m happy to come to work,” she said. “Not a lot of people do that. You don’t get that chance in life.”

The nonprofit is surviving through community partnerships and payment for work performed, in need of additional funding.

“Everything that we’ve done has been off a revenue base,” said Fitzpatrick. “We’ve not received any tax dollars. And that’s why we’re struggling.”

 

The organization is helping an often overlooked segment of society move forward.

“I’ve learned that humans are capable of very cruel things,” said Fitzpatrick. “But, I’ve also learned that people are very capable of really great things. And I’ve learned that everybody is redeemable.”

The second chances are helping make a difference in the community.

“I want to give back,” said Fitzpatrick. “I want to make the world better because I damaged it.”