Garfield business aims to make impact in its backyard
A Garfield cleaning business is trying to keep young Black men off the streets by giving them a job with a mentor. The trouble is convincing them to stick with the jobs.
Andre Turner runs the janitorial cleaning company A&A Turner Enterprise with his wife, Ashley. Besides its more traditional employees, the company has employed at-risk youth from the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh since 2017.
When the couple started A&A in 2015, Mr. Turner said they only intended to supplement their incomes. The company still does that. Mr. Turner also works full-time as community coordinator for the nonprofit Brothers and Sisters Emerging and coaches the Garfield Gators football program. Ms. Turner is lead secretary at the Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship.
In 2017, the couple witnessed family members, who were transitioning out of juvenile detention centers, quitting their jobs at McDonald’s and “violating their probation because they were afraid to run into one of their rival gang members,” Mr. Turner explained.
The couple wanted to pay them to stay off the streets by putting them to work cleaning elementary schools in the evenings. Mr. Turner said the idea was to offer “some after-school work, to put a couple dollars in their pockets, and keep them busy.”
Soon, the Turners used their community engagement to recruit Garfield’s at-risk youth more broadly.
The idea was a natural fit for them.
The couple met while they were both working as line staff at the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center in 2007. Though the center in Lincoln-Lemington closed last year, they have been able to hire some of the kids ages 15-18 from the program.
Mr. Turner also used his reputation from playing in, administering, and coaching the Garfield Gators over the last 20 years to recruit others.
“I’m not a stranger,” he said. “They know what I’m about.” Born and raised in Garfield, he is known in the neighborhood as Big Dre.
He remembered texting with a Gator he was coaching in 2020 who was changing jobs every week because of being unable to find consistent transportation. At some point, Mr. Turner said, “Come on, dude, just work for me.”
The Turners picked him up and employed him for two years until their young employee, who had a record, got charged with assault at school and a judge sent him into a residential facility.
Though Mr. Turner is hopeful this individual will return to work when he gets out, A&A has had trouble with retention.
“It’s been a struggle over the last two to three years to keep younger guys. Once they get paid, they never come back. They’re always looking behind their backs thinking someone is after them.” At A&A, he said, youth hires usually last for one or two months before leaving. About 25 employeeshave come and gone since 2015.
The company started in 2015 with just one employee, in addition to the Turners, and brought in revenue between $20,000-$30,000 annually in its first two years. The business has grown to five employees with about 15 accounts, the largest being the Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship. Last year, A&A made a profit of about $75,000.
“If I didn’t care about providing an opportunity, I could just post jobs on Indeed,” Mr. Turner said, referring to the online job portal. “It would probably be easier.”
In Garfield, nearly a third of families live below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census’ 2020 American Community Survey. Single mothers head more than half of families, 26.9% of working-age males are either unemployed or out of the labor force, and a third of families are headed by a high school graduate.
“For many kids, working and having a job is corny. They rather do other things, like selling drugs,” said Thomas Freeman, who has played and coached for the Gators and works at A&A.
“Seeing someone grow up and be successful is a great example to kids,” he said.
Mr. Turner graduated from Mansfield University with a criminal justice degree. Ms. Turner graduated from the ICM School of Business. They have two kids and live in Penn Hills.
Though keeping workers in any workplace can be a challenge, Mr. Turner’s guidance at A&A has helped his cousin-in-law change direction.
When he first got a KFC job at 16, Brandon Holloway of Lincoln-Lemington never showed. He had lived too lavishly as a drug dealer to give it up, spending more than $5,000 on Jordans, bottles, and hibachi every week.
In 2017, Mr. Turner offered Mr. Holloway, now 35, the opportunity to join their cleaning crew.
Just out of Rockview State Correctional Institution in Bellefonte in central Pennsylvania after serving his second sentence for selling hard drugs, Mr. Holloway remembered being told: “I’m going to pick you up at this time. Be ready. Wear something that can get dirty. Stick it out with me for six months.”
Mr. Turner was passionate about getting Mr. Holloway on the right track. According to Mr. Holloway, “If he wanted to, he’d put his arms around my neck in a headlock and say, ‘You’re not going back.’”
Mr. Turner also encouraged a little friendly competition with his cousin. “He knows how I felt about getting more finances,” Mr. Holloway said, so Mr. Turner started saying, “Yo, go start your own cleaning business.”
And Mr. Holloway did, going into business with his younger brother Dante in DBD Cleaning Solutions. With seven accounts and splitting their $38,000 in revenue, both brothers work for A&A to earn additional income.
Still, Mr. Holloway joked, “I need a house bigger than his.”