Hi friends. I’m Cameron. I’m a regular guy trying to make my way in the world like everyone, but I have the tiny additional challenge of being deaf in a hearing world. The challenge is not with regards to my capabilities – I can do anything anyone else can do except hear. Rather, the challenges I mostly face are the preconceptions that others have about me and my abilities. It’s normal I guess, but it routinely provides unnecessary roadblocks, such as getting a meaningful job.

In fact, a June 3rd interview with CBC’s The Sunday Edition radio program just interviewed the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of the Deaf on this very subject. Michael Enright, the interviewer, began with this:

“For the past few years, the national unemployment rate in Canada has been hovering at around six or seven per cent. But for one segment of the population, deaf Canadians, it is 40 per cent, and it has been at that level for several decades. Four out of every ten Canadians who cannot hear want to work, but no one will hire them.”

If you’re interested, you can listen to the whole interview and/or read the transcript here.

Step-By-Step Successes

Because I feel capable and motivated to earn a living wage, I started my own lawn care business a couple of years ago called Trust Landscaping (TLS). It’s seasonal and I’m at the mercy of the weather, but I love working outside in a natural environment and I love turning the shabby into the beautiful.

Imagine leaving for work in the morning from this:
And coming home to this:

Now that’s satisfying.

My plan was to build up the TLS clientele to the point where I could hire on teams of workers, including but not limited to members of the deaf community who also are not interested in a future of a government assisted standard of living. Naturally, beautifying the landscape while improving people’s quality of life through honest, well-paid employment is a decent enough goal, but it provides a much deeper sense of satisfaction for me to enable those whose struggle I have also lived and breathed. It’s also important to me to serve as a role model for today’s deaf children. They need to see people “like them” in leadership roles to which they can aspire in their own meaningful ways.

It’s an all-round winning model if I can turn this one-man-show into a means to get an ongoing stream of people, over time, off welfare and out from under the ‘disability’ umbrella.

First goal post, check. Now the road block.

Now that I’ve built up a customer base for TLS, I am ready to hire on some willing and able-bodied labourers. However, for that I need more equipment – as you can imagine, the business has outgrown my little Honda and trailer (see below). TLS needs two more work vehicles for two new crews, and of course more tools (lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, etc.) for them to use. There will also be associated business costs to begin with, such as commercial insurances, and front pay to workers (clients take longer to pay than the TLS weekly payroll would require), etc.

Banks have either turned me down for loans due to the seasonal nature of TLS, or offered exuberant interest rates. That is why I’ve created this fundraising campaign – I’m hoping to raise a minimum of $20,000, hopefully before July, for equipment for crews to get to work in the season that has just started. I know that sounds like a lot, but safe, good-quality second hand vehicles in Ontario are not cheap. I worked for a company in the past that scrimped on work vehicles and their maintenance. I remember the daily anxiety of driving those crappy trucks and wondering why my boss found my life so expendable. I want better than that for TLS workers.

I hope you find my goal worthy and would consider contributing any amount towards it – even five-dollar donations will add up. I would also be very grateful if you would share this with your social media friends far and wide. Summer is coming! Thank you so much.