BALTIMORE — A 19-year-old Baltimore entrepreneur is leading a movement to invest in youth through his lawn care business that provides job skills and opportunities.
Jalil Liverman founded Dream Big Inferno, a youth-led organization focused on getting kids off the streets and into opportunity through lawn care, furniture moving, and hauling services.
WATCH: Baltimore teen's lawn care business builds skills, keeps youth off streets
"If we are not trying to give back or pour into the youth, we're taking out of the youth, and that's not my goal. My goal was to always to supply the youth with skills, the tools, and the ultimate foundation so that they can live out their legacy their way," Liverman said.
The program offers workforce training, salesmanship, and networking skills to young men in Baltimore.
"I see it as a way where we bridge the gap, just one person to us because the youth are out in the community providing a service where we could just be on the streets doing anything, but no we decided to be in our communities to boost the value of it and ultimately bring everybody else together so allowing us in your community is allowing us to grow," Liverman said.
Dream Big Inferno has already changed the lives of 10 young men, including 19-year-old Bernard Harrison, who uses the experience to help him network because he wants to work in sales.
"It has made me become a better person, it has made me be able to strive more and lead by example… I wanted to help I love helping and teaching our youth and shaping their futures," Harrison said.
Jalen Auston, a 17-year-old entrepreneur with the program, says he uses the experience to boost his confidence about youth in Baltimore trying to make a change.
"To show that the youth isn't just running around the streets, getting into the streets, getting into wrong things and bad things and that there are other youth that are trying to have the city look well and better for everyone around it," Auston said.
For 15-year-old Malik Fedd, Dream Big Inferno is where he hopes to get his start in business.
"I think it's a great way for the youth to expand, coming out of their shells and doing great things and a great push towards entrepreneurship," Fedd said.
More than just work, Dream Big Inferno is building a workforce rooted in community values.
"Simple as the next generation to pass down, pass down to the next generation," Liverman said.
Through hard work and real impact, this 19-year-old is showing his peers how to dream big and deliver results.
"I see this as a way of giving back, the community that poured into me, my village, it's time for me to give back to them as well and that includes the youth," Liverman said.
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