BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Buffalo Strong spirit continues as a 17-year-old from Buffalo is helping his community while helping himself raise money for school during the lake effect snow blast.
Adam Santiago is grinding away with his little brother to earn some money while helping others clear all the snow from their homes.
“We’ve been tackling around like 15 houses a day around like some of the main streets are Bloomfield, Richfield, Columbus,” he says. “We have a lot of houses on those streets, and it's been pretty hectic. I've gotten over around 100 calls.”
And not to mention he’s going house to house on foot.
“My parents work so if they have time I might be able to catch a ride,” Santiago says. "Hopefully my dad usually helps me out with that but 90% of the time I'm walking to each house.”
Santiago says he’s charging $25 a driveway.
All of this hard work in hopes of enrolling at Canisius University to study business management.
“So I feel like all that money that I'm getting for shoveling should definitely take off a lot of the tuition,” he says.
Santiago tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person that sometimes he will get discouraged, but working alongside his 14-year-old brother, Jeremiah Santiago, keeps him going.
“Like getting tired and drowsy he definitely cheers me up. He just keeps me going because he definitely loves being out here more than me,” Santiago says. “I'm not going to lie he loves the cold more than me so he definitely has more fun with it.”
Jeremiah says he loves seeing the ambition coming from his older brother.
“I never saw him this motivated into doing something and it just motivates me to do it,” Jeremiah says. “Because it's such a great impact he has, and I feel like it could be an impact to me. I'm really proud of my brother and how great he's doing with this and I hope he makes it far.”
One of Adam's clients says seeing his drive gives him hope for the future.
“Last year when the blizzard hit we were discussing it and we thought it was really weird that there's no kids coming out in and looking to shovel and make that extra money,” says Rick Bartolotta, a South Buffalo resident. “So this year this kid moved in down the street from us and put flyers in everybody's mailbox and we shared it on the Block Club Facebook Page."
Bartolotta says he looks forward to helping the young entrepreneur in the near future.
“Anything we can do to help this get some business will help out with it,” says Bartolotta.
Adam explains how he learned that self-discipline is the key to success.
“Like when it gets cold and I get ice on my beard and it’s starting to freeze, I really want to go home, but just thinking about me staying true to what I tell myself and persevering through it, it definitely is going to build some good work ethic,” he says. “My dad has always told me that he's raising men, he's not raising boys because he just wants us to always be strong and persevere and finish whatever we accomplish. And my mom has always told me when we dedicate ourselves to something it has to be 100% there's no quitting no backing out we gotta finish it through.”
Adam says he’s in the process of trying to get some snow removal equipment for his business.
Click here for the GoFundMe link.
Below is Adam’s list of services:
