Nathan Adams lost his beloved grandfather, Fred, to cancer in February of 2021. Now, he’s keeping the 72-year-old’s memory alive by performing the chore they often did together – mowing the lawn.
“He taught me when I was old enough to push a mower — how to start it and how to make the grass look good,” the 14-year-old told FOX 29.
It might not sound like a big deal, but Adams isn’t just mowing his own lawn. He adopted the name “Lawn Kid” and set out to cut 50 lawns in honor of his grandfather.
Helping veterans
Adams told his mother Angel that to honor his grandfather further, he would mow the lawns of U.S. military veterans since Fred had been in the Army. The first trim is always complimentary, and veterans continue to get a discount.
“He set a goal of 50 lawns for 50 veterans, and he’s going to cut them for free,” Adams’ mom told WGRZ News in Buffalo, NY. “Even if he gets more than 50, he wants to keep going.”
Adams only had six veterans on his list at the time, but he was eagerly searching for more via the local Buffalo news stations.
“Everyone wants to help the community in their own way,” he said.
Hard at work
The teen had started mowing his neighbors’ lawns a month earlier, but he was eager to do more work, and at his age, no one could hire him for a more formal job.
That’s when he turned to local Facebook groups in his hometown of Tonawanda, NY, and found some new customers who were grateful for the support.
Of course, if you’re mowing multiple lawns a day, you need a good mower, and the teen didn’t have one.
Community service
After hearing about Nathan Adams’ quest to mow the lawns of veterans, a family friend found him a used mower to replace the first one that broke down.
But then that one stopped working as well.
Luckily, when the local Lowe’s hardware store heard about Adams’ plans and trouble affording a good mower, they decided to give back to the community as well by gifting Adams a new machine. Lowe’s found out about the teen from one of Adams’ neighbors, Leona Doherty, who works at the store (and has hired him to mow her own lawn).
“He didn’t quit. He’s 14, a teenager. A lot of kids would have been like, you know. And it was hot that day. He just stuck with it,” Doherty said. “When you have the ability to make something a little bit better for somebody, you should just do it.”
Paying it forward
The gift caught Adams off-guard. He called his new equipment “the Cadillac of mowers.”
And he knows Fred would be proud if he could see his grandson today.
“I think his exact words would be ‘I’m proud of you bud,’” he told a local news channel.
A “typical teen”
Adams was proud of the attention that his good deed was getting, as was his mom, Angel. But she was quick to remind everyone that he’s still a 14-year-old boy (albeit a good one!).
“He is like a typical teenager, and he will bring us to the brink of insanity,” Angel Adams told Fox 29. “But he has a good heart. He also has ADHD and autism. He’s on the low end of the spectrum, and he doesn’t let that slow him down. It makes me so very proud to see him doing something in my dad’s honor.”
Be sure to scroll down below to see an interview with Nathan Adams and hear more about his dedication to helping local military veterans in the Western New York area.
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