Cleaning with Kindness is the dream of Tammy Hassevort, inspired by the struggles brought upon by breast cancer and the passing of her best friend, Pamela Barr.
As a business consultant and strategist, Steve Frazee was expecting a routine conversation about marketing and general business when his wife said Hassevort wanted some advice about her cleaning business (Frazee was one of her clients). However, he was surprised when presented with a vision for something much bigger.
"I told her, 'you need you to do some homework,'" assigning some detailed research that he needed to review. "It was a litmus test, and I wasn't sure of the follow up, but she came back with the details."
Convinced of her passion and the potential of a multi-faceted venture that provides free cleaning services for families experiencing medical issues (like the Barr family), along with skill-training and the a vision to grow the program beyond West Michigan, Frazee signed on as chief strategist for Cleaning with Kindness and agreed to conduct the winning pitch at
5x5Night.
With the $5,000 prize money, Frazee and Hassevort are working through the details of the business model and getting ready to launch a website. They want to "start cleaning" in the very near future. They are also working on the needs assessment part of their plan.
"We want to maintain the dignity of the individual whose house we will clean without an intrusive assessment. We don't want people to get a note from the doctor [to be eligible for house cleaning]," explain Frazee, who says the spirit of their endeavor is that for families who need the service, there will be an element of surprise. As they are experiencing a very stressful time in their lives, Cleaning with Kindness wants to be like a visit of "cleaning elves," giving the family one less thing to worry about.
By this time next year, Frazee is hopeful they will be ready to expand the venture beyond West Michigan.
Source: Steve Frazee, Cleaning with Kindness
Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs News Editor
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