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Critics of Michigan's broad bans on business activity have a 13-year-old poster boy in Redford Township. 

Caleb Leitch, who last year began using a commercial mower to trim lawns for about 45 customers, now is cast as a young victim of a state government some see as over-protective.

"Mowing lawns is not going to increase the spread" of coronavirus, the teen posts at the Facebook page of his fledgling business, Caleb's Outdoor Services. "We work outside!" In addition to grass-cutting, "I can take care of small landscaping projects such as shrub trimming and mulch," he says.


"Elderly and disabled clients needed help," says Matt Leitch, right, posing with Caleb this week. (Photos: Facebook)

The homeschooled student, accompanied by his father Matt, this week began serving nearby customers without cost as a way to skirt an executive order from the governor that bars landscape business services, at least through this month.

"We read the order, then we read it again and decided that lawns needed cutting, and our elderly and disabled clients needed help," Matt Leitch posts at a public Facebook group called Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine. "We mowed for 'free,' but accepted donations to a local food bank."

They gave $250 in tips to Redford Interfaith Relief on Tuesday, the parent says, adding: "Gonna do a few more tomorrow. ... Zero contact with homeowners. Totally safe."

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to announce Friday what activities can and can't resume after her current stay-home executive orders expire late next week on April 30. 


The young entrepreneur at a job site Tuesday.

Caleb is a made-to-order case study for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market advocacy group in Midland. "Governor’s ‘Stay-at-Home’ Orders Stymie Teenager’s Lawn Service" says its headline at Michigan Capitol Confidential, a point-of-view news site.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders – among the strictest in the nation – have shut down the [landscape and lawn care] industry.

That order has cost 13-year-old entrepreneur Caleb Leitch, and countless others, thousands of dollars. ...

Caleb understands the virus and how it can be spread person-to-person, but “like most of us in outside services,” his father said, Caleb is “having a hard time understanding why he can’t go mow his lawns.” Just missing out on spring leaf cleanup has cost him $2,500.

On Facebook, the teen links to a "Make lawn care workers essential" petition at change.org and asks his 340 followers. "Please consider signing this." It says, in part:

Before this virus most of us wore masks and gloves already. ... By forcing us to stay home the governor is adding thousands more people to the unemployed list who could very easily still be working.

Other states have governors who labeled lawn care as essential. In the state of Michigan if we get "caught" we are in jeopardy of losing our business license for over a year and a $500-$1,000 fine.