MILWAUKEE — “When it was new, it probably went for upwards of thousands of dollars,” says Greg Ryan, describing one of his many snowblowers. “I’m going to take a guess and say it’s probably 25 years old and still has years left of service.”
The snowblower Ryan is describing will go home with some lucky neighbor for free. He’s been giving them away – along with lawnmowers – for about seven years.
He’s been in small engine repair for a lot longer.
“I think I had a customer that said, ‘thanks for fixing my lawn mower, do you need this snow blower? Would you want it for parts?’”
Ryan took it, discovered it didn’t need that much work and decided to fix it up to give to someone who actually needed it.
“I make myself happy and I make the recipient happy, so it’s a very nice thing,” he says.
Over the years, people have donated dozens and dozens of lawnmowers and snow blowers. Ryan has put smiles on just as many faces.
“If you can’t blow snow, you’re either going to have to shovel it or you’re going to be late to the office, or wherever you’re employed,” he says. “If they have a snow blower, generally they can get out and blow the snow off before they need to drive away. And I’m happy to help.”
Ryan wants others to take his gift and use it to help their neighbors. He calls it “Snow Blow it Forward.”
“A couple of years ago I put out a challenge to a bunch of people and I said, I will snow blow out my entire block and anybody else who does that, I will give them $50. And I actually had a couple of recipients of that, and they blew out their entire square block!” he says.
Don’t expect the program to go anywhere – Ryan says fixing up and donating lawn and snow machines has been a self-sustaining cycle.
“They keep coming in!” he says. “I keep getting messages from people saying, ‘I have one for you if you want to pick it up!’”
