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Starting a landscaping company just made 'good scents' |
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Claire Kenna
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By Courtney Llewellyn
Reminder Assistant Editor
SOUTHWICK The majority of students who are rewarded by the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation Entrepreneurship Initiative are traditional students - aged 18 to 22, earning degrees soon after high school.
Claire Kenna is an exception to the norm.
Kenna was honored earlier this year for demonstrating her entrepreneurial spirit with the company she established, Good Scents Garden Company. The single mom, who is in her forties, is pursuing a degree in business at Holyoke Community College.
"I became a mom when I was very young, and I never got to finish college," she explained. "I worked as a weeder, a grass cutter [with a landscaping company] ... anything to support my kids."
She said she has always been interested in gardening and landscaping. "Since I was a kid, I begged my parents to let me plant flowers," Kenna said. "I grew up in the Bronx."
A few years ago, she approached the city of Westfield and asked if she could start a beautification project. In her first year, she grew and placed over 100 moss baskets throughout the city.
Earlier this year, she was named to the Board of Directors for Grandmother's Garden.
"I've done the gardening thing for a long time," Kenna said. "I was doing a lot of work for realtors, improving the curb appeal [of homes they were selling]."
After a while, she decided she wanted to go into business for herself.
The Good Scents Garden Company is a full spectrum gardening service specializing in sustainable landscaping, using no synthetic chemicals. Kenna encourages her clients to begin composting instead of buying expensive fertilizers.
"I've always done the sustainable thing," Kenna said in an interview with Reminder Publications. "I think people are more willing to do it now [than they were when I started]. People didn't want to connect that the things they used on their lawns [could harm their entire neighborhood]. They didn't realize what they were doing [when they sprayed pesticides over their lawns]."
She said that getting people to change their views is a little tougher in this area than in others because people are used to "things always being done the same."
Her company currently has two employees, but she said when business gets heavy, she has had as many as 11. "That's based on the economy," she said. "Right now, though, things are steady and good."
Kenna's goal going forward with Good Scents Garden Company is to try to put herself behind the scenes.
"I'm trying to learn how to not be on a job site," she explained. "I want to put myself into management."
And as for that degree? Kenna may be a non-traditional student, but she's got her eyes on the prize. She is currently working toward it one class at a time, but if she can step back from the day to day operations of her company, she said she'll use that time to pursue it at a quicker pace.
Kenna can be reached
via e-mail at goodscentsgardenco@yahoo.com.
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