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Northside man in Washington, D.C. to receive national award

Sheila Vilvens
Cincinnati Enquirer
Tim Arnold is the recipient of the 2019 Jefferson Award for Public Service in Greater Cincinnati.

A decade ago Tim Arnold of Northside hired one homeless youth to help with remodeling and landscaping.

The job offer was the catalyst for something bigger. Arnold went on to found Lawn Life, a nonprofit that provides jobs to young adults in need of work and a second chance. Since it's founding in 2008, Lawn Life has provided jobs and a second chance to nearly 840 young adults.

The success of Arnold's effort has not gone unnoticed.

On Tuesday he was in Washington, D.C. to receive the highest public service award possible at the Jefferson Awards, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service Benefitting Local Communities.

The award is part of the larger Jefferson Awards program, which was created in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Senator Robert Taft Jr. of Cincinnati, and Sam Beard. The Jefferson Awards is a program of the nonprofit Multiplying Good and the awards are designed to be the Nobel Prize of community service.

The national finalists are chosen through nomination programs in more than 90 communities throughout the country. Arnold was selected earlier this year by the Rotary Club of Cincinnati with local partners The Cincinnati Enquirer and WKRC-TV Local 12.

Lawn Life's mission is to provide at-risk youth with their first real job, teaching them the value of hard work and instilling in them the motivation to strive for a better life.

The company hires professional tradespeople who act as mentors for the young employees, teaching them a work ethic and life coping skills along with professional skills. Eighty percent of Lawn Life's young employees stay in school or enroll in a trade school. Fewer than 10 have committed criminal offenses after graduating, according to a release from the Rotary Club of Cincinnati.

Arnold is not the first local Jefferson Award winner to receive the national award. Others include Nancy Eigel-Miller of Mariemont and Suzy DeYoung of Milford.

Rotary Club of Cincinnati President Rick Flynn of Evendale, with 2019 Cincinnati Jefferson Award winner Tim Arnold of Northside, Rotary award chair Bill Shula of Bethel, and Rotary member Doug Adams of Mariemont, a past national Jefferson Award winner.