The DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), the District’s juvenile justice agency, announced that our youth residents from New Beginnings Youth Development Center are offering free lawn service for residents of Ward 5 who are 65 years and older. Among these residents is the city’s oldest living resident Ms. Eddye L. Williams, age 109. DYRS youth will cut their lawns once a month, at no cost.

Many youth lack the opportunity to participate in the kinds of positive activities that most kids consider routine. The Free Lawn Service program is part of a growing effort by DYRS to involve young people in giving back to society as a way of connecting themselves to positive activities. Research is  increasingly showing that the more “civically engaged” young people are, the less likely they will be rearrested and more likely they are to become the kind of productive citizens we all want them to be.

DYRS's Free Lawn Service program was featured in the Washington Informer.