Mom’s Punishment for Sons Becomes Awesome Charity

No kid likes being punished by mom, but what happens when the kid ends up loving his punishment? Hint: something amazing.

That’s exactly what happened when Louisville, Kentucky, mom Barbara Wilson Woodard tried to punish her son Travis Durham. Woodard made the 14-year-old mow people’s lawns as a punishment, but he took a liking to the tiresome activity, WRAL TV reports.

So, Durham and his brothers founded a charity project called It Takes a Village: Together We Stand Strong, where they go around the community mowing people’s lawns for free.

The group’s Facebook page advocates for togetherness and supporting each other through generous acts.

“People say things like, ‘Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, my grandfather did.’ That may be true, but many of those ‘bootstraps’ are no longer available today,” Woodard writes.

“There are many things that we just don’t have much control over. But things like helping a neighbor with yard work, giving food, offering suggestions and prayers to building a positive community is something that you can do, right here, right now, in the place where you are now – whether or not you have a job, an education, or a car. We would like to be the first one on our block to reach out and touch our neighbor.”

A GoFundMe account has been set up for the group, which requests donations for equipment and fuel. Their initial goal was $6,000, but they have since garnered over $75,000 (as of press time).

On the GoFundMe page, Woodard also writes that she hopes others will join in helping the community.

“Although, this cause was originally Travis’ ideal, we are encouraging all young men to participate. We have offered to keep it more interesting, motivational and exciting for them. We have agreed to keep track of their donated labor and give them credit towards an annual chartered trip to Disney World!”

With a trip to Disney on the horizon, it looks as if these boys won’t be slowing down any time soon, but Woodard’s main goal is to teach her sons work ethic and empathy.

“Let’s build a work ethic in our kids, create morals for them to help people only from the kindness of their hearts, teach them values that their life and freedom should not have a cost, give respect to all mankind without judgement because we don’t know a person’s journey!”

(H/T APlus)