Father-Son Lawn Care Duo Cuts Yards for Free (Exclusive)

About four years ago, Houston lawn care specialists Martin Hernandez and his son Daniel went over to an elderly woman’s home to cut her overgrown lawn. After the job was finished and they told the woman the price, the two learned that she was unable to pay. 

“She told us that she can’t afford her medication and how she’s really struggling at the moment,” Daniel, 19, tells PEOPLE. “And from there, we just told her, ‘You know what? Just forget about it. We’ll leave it at that.’ ”

The experience made the father-and-son team behind M&D Lawn Care realize that there were people in their community who could not afford to have their lawns properly maintained due to financial challenges.   

“We just went home and thought, ‘What a sad situation,’ “ Daniel recalls. “She’s put into this situation, and she can’t pay for lawn care. It showed us that there’s probably more people out there [like her] and we just don’t know it.”

Now, about one to two days a week during their time off, Martin, 59, and Daniel scout for homes in the community with neglected, overgrown lawns and cut them for free with the consent of the homeowners.

They eventually began to post videos on social media showing what the yards look like before and after, and the touching reactions from those they help. The duo’s good deeds have caught the attention of online users and local media outlets, including CBS affiliate KHOU and ABC affiliate KTRK.

“We were going to some rough areas in the city where we know people are mostly low-income,” Daniel says of when he and Martin first started their endeavor.

“We would head over there and, right away, we would spot an overgrown yard,” he recalls. “I’d go knock on the door [since my dad doesn’t really speak English], and sure enough, they’re in the same situation. I mean, not exactly the same, but they’re struggling as well.”

At first, the homeowners were skeptical about the duo’s offer, thinking it was a type of scam. Some of them turned down the free service, even with M&D offering to pay their water bill. “They were just looking at me as a kid,” says Daniel. “They wouldn’t really trust me at first, but I showed them our few videos we had at the time. And then from there they would let us work on it.”

Once they get the approval, Daniel sets up his GoPro camera, and then he and his dad perform the work, which can last on average about eight hours, depending on the state of the yard. “We’ve had our fastest one at about six and our longest one being 14 hours,” he says.

Daniel says “all” of the people whose lawns he and his father care for “are pretty grateful.”

He adds, “We’ve had a couple who just say thank you, and that’s it. But we’ve had some people who start crying right there.”

One customer Daniel remembers well is a woman with an overgrown yard who lived in an RV outside her home. Daniel says he and his father drove past the property twice and thought it was abandoned. On their third drive-by, they noticed a woman there who turned out to be the homeowner’s caregiver. 

“The reason she’s in the RV is because her husband died inside the house,” Daniel says of the homeowner. “She didn’t want to be inside there anymore, so she just moved to the driveway. She had health issues, and she can’t really walk now.”

After he and his father finished the job, “she started crying twice,” Daniel says. “It was really emotional. It sure is something to see how a yard can make such a difference for someone.”

Kimberly Ray, 56, a disabled resident who lives on her monthly check, had her lawn cut by Daniel and his dad after the duo spotted her yard during one of their scouting trips.

“They also trimmed and cleaned up the yard by bagging all the trash and yard debris from mowing,” she tells PEOPLE. “I was very amazed [by the work]. I had my front yard back and no longer had to be ashamed of it. It was very beautifully done.”

The work meant more to her in other ways: “Without M&D lawn care doing my yard, I risked having a lien put on my house. They were my angels that day and restored my faith,” she says. “I cannot praise them or their service enough! God bless them and their families.”

Shay Davis, 38, a mother of two, heard about M&D’s service through a relative who caught a local TV report on Daniel and Martin. She tells PEOPLE that the renovation of her late grandmother’s home, where her family lives now, took almost two years following a deep freeze, leaving her yard overgrown.

“I just stepped out on faith on a wing of prayer,” Davis tells PEOPLE, “and I emailed them and they actually emailed me back the same day and told me that they would be willing to help.”

She adds, “They’re doing something so positive and helping people. I cried. I think what they’re doing is the Lord’s work. I’m truly so grateful for them.”

The company’s videos from Daniel and Martin’s jobs have gained a following — their YouTube channel and TikTok have approximately 500,000 and 378,000 followers, respectively. Some of those clips have garnered views in the millions.

While Martin isn’t a fluent English speaker, Daniel says his dad can read the online comments to the clips. “He comes up and tells me, ‘Wow, did you read this one? Did you read that one?’ He always gets really excited when he sees good, good comments.”

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It’s not just M&D Lawn Care that volunteers its services; the Hernandez family also has another business, MJD Pressure Washing — which involves Daniel and his elder brother, Martin Jr., 28 — that donates its time, too. That business’ YouTube channel has 470,000 subscribers. 

Daniel says that he and his dad still plan to continue volunteering their time to help others. “There are always people that we don’t know about and they could be going through a really tough time,” he says, “and not even just cutting the yard. If you can do anything simple, just help them out with whatever you can do.”