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8 | September 13, 2018 | The Homer Horizon news
homerhorizon.com
Single mom receives surprise from business owner
A Touch of Green
Landscaping
transforms yard
outside of home
Jacquelyn Schlabach
Assistant Editor
When Kim Manson
looked outside her house
the morning of Aug. 2, she
couldn’t believe her eyes.
Ten landscaping trucks and
20 employees pulled up and
jumped out of their vehicles
ready to get started.
Little did Manson know,
they were all there to transform
the outside of her
Homer Glen home, all for
free.
Owner Jim Lahey, of A
Touch of Green Landscaping
in Homer Glen, lent a
helping hand to his friend,
Manson, to beautify her yard
just a day before it went on
the market to sell and just
hours before a photographer
came to take photos of the
house.
“He’s just that kind of a
guy and kind of knowing
our situation and wanted to
do what he could to help out,
he just very graciously came
with a crew of people, and it
was like an hour before the
photographer came,” Manson
said.
Lahey and three of his
crews arrived at 8:30 a.m.
with trucks full of flowers,
mulch, fertilizer, soil and
“everything to make the
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Employees with A Touch of Green Landscaping work hard
Aug. 2 at landscaping Homer Glen resident Kim Manson’s
home. Photos submitted
house shine,” Lahey said.
“All these trucks pull up
and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh,
what are you doing?’ And
he knows I’m a single mom
here at the house and just
wanted to extend his graciousness,
and I think he’s a
wonderful business owner in
our community, and I think
it was a really neat thing that
he did,” she said.
Manson decided to put
her house up for sale last
minute after a recent divorce
and said she didn’t think she
would have the time or resources
to “do an overhaul
like that” and spruce up the
outside. She had initially
reached out to Lahey asking
for mulch in hopes that her
two sons could help spread it
before heading back to college.
Instead, he called back to
tell her not to worry, and that
he would take care of her.
“That’s what you do with
friends; that’s what friends
are for, to help people when
they need it,” Lahey said.
Lahey and Manson have
known each other for 10
years, living just down the
street from one another. He
didn’t think twice about giving
back.
“It’s nice, because it’s a
great feeling,” Lahey said.
“The reward is the feeling
that you get, giving back and
helping other people. Kim’s
a good person.”
The first person Manson
called was her friend and
real estate partner Laura Bugos-Komperda.
Kim Manson (right) stands beside Jim Lahey, owner of A Touch of Green, who surprised
Manson with sprucing up the outside of her house for free.
After two hours of work, Lahey and his crews took out dead plants, planted flowers,
sprayed weeds, turned the soil over, re-mulched and more.
“She called me practically
in tears, telling me in the
morning she had all these
people and all these trucks
outside in front of her house
and what they were doing.
I was like, ‘Oh my God,’
Bugos-Komperda said. “So,
I jumped in the car and went
and got coffee and donuts
and brought it over to the
guys.”
The kind gesture brought
Bugos-Komperda to tears, as
well, as she walked around
and thanked everyone for
being there.
“She’s a really good person,
she deserves this and I’m like
you guys are going above and
beyond,” Bugos-Komperda
said. “She was just looking for
a little mulch.”
Lahey and his team took
out dead plants, planted
flowers, sprayed the weeds,
turned the soil over, remulched
and more all in the
span of two hours.
“They just kind of
swooped in on [Manson] and
in a couple hours they transformed
the outside and it
was like ‘wow;’ it was amazing,”
Bugos-Komperda said.
“It’s really like a good
neighbor, good heart kind of
gesture,” Manson said.
Lahey’s act of kindness
has left a lasting impact on
his dear friend, reminding
her that “we’re all in this together.”
“It was just an amazing
act of service that someone
in the community did for another
homeowner, and you
don’t often see people taking
the time to do something
nice for someone and to help
someone out,” Manson said.