dependable cleaners

Cohasset — Christa Hagearty’s grandfather started Dependable Cleaners. Her father took over from him. As one of the third generation of owners, she grew up with a unique perspective of her family’s business. “A lot of weekends when I was a kid, I’d go into the store. My father would introduce me to the customers and employees, tell me about them, where they came from. Being able to look at the whole picture — the customers, us, the employees, and the community — that really affected me.” Still, she didn’t intend to join the family business after getting her MBA. “I tried a lot of other things,” she said, including a stint at Walt Disney World. Then her uncle, who co-owned the business with her father, died suddenly and very young. Hagearty came in to help out. Thirteen years later she bought the business from her father, and is now president and CEO of a thriving company. “My dad still works for me, although I’d say he can pretty much do what he wants,” she said, smiling.

Her sister, Carlyn Fawcett, also works for her. “She’s a key person for me.”Hagearty described Fawcett and her father as being amazing at operations, whereas she likes to look more ‘big picture. “It’s a nice yin/yang gestalt,” she said.

It’s certainly working. Last year, Dependable Cleaners won recognition as one of the top 100 businesses owned by women in Massachusetts by the Boston Business Journal and The Commonwealth Institute.

In addition to business strategy, a large part of that big picture for Hagearty is community involvement. Dependable Cleaners has a long history of community involvement. Starting in 1944, for instance, they would clean United States flags for free. Hagearty, a Cohasset resident, sees herself as continuing a tradition. She also wanted to do more. “When I was getting my MBA,” she said, “I did an analysis of how we interacted with the community. I didn’t think we were doing enough. When I came into the business, I wanted to create more of a wellness contribution.”

She started a few different programs. The first program’s a natural fit for a cleaning business. Hagearty and Dependable Cleaners support the Boston Chapter of Dress for Success, an organization that provides disadvantaged women with the tools needed to begin or advance their careers. Among these tools are donated business suits and clothes for women, so they feel confident while on interviews. “But it’s not just suits for interviews,” Hagearty said. “If a woman gets the job, we provide one week’s worth of outfits and accessories, like stockings and shoes and jewelry.” Dependable Cleaners cleans and presses these clothes for free.

As an outgrowth of her work for Dress for Success, Hagearty started a second program just within Dependable Cleaners. She dubs it the “Clean Suit Stimulus” program, and she had the idea for it after a conversation with a customer who’d been unemployed. The customer knew she needed to pick up clothes that had been at Dependable over a month, but she admitted she couldn’t pay the bill. Hagearty forgave the bill and decided to make it company policy to clean and press three suits free of charge for people who have been hit by the recession and are looking for work.

“I figure our customers have done a lot for us,” Hagearty said. “We should do something for them.”

The third program Hagearty started taps directly into her personal passions. It’s called Read to Ride, and it runs in each of the 16 communities where Dependable Cleaners has a shop. The program encourages kids ages six to 15 to read by giving them a chance to win a new bike and helmet for each book they read. “I was a big reader as a child,” Hagearty said. “It helped me be resilient after my parents divorced.”

Resilience is a big issue for Hagearty. “There’s research on the subject. For children to be resilient, they need one adult who believes in them. They need to be able to see another world, and to have imagination and creativity.” She said her grandmother filled that role of the adult who believed in her, and that her reading helped her with the rest. She wants to pass that gift on to other kids besides her three, two girls and a boy, all in Cohasset Public Schools.

“I’ve heard from parents that it gives kids incentive from a competitive aspect,” Hagearty said. “Parents hear their kids saying to each other, ‘I’m going to read more than you.’”

Hagearty learned about the basic framework she turned into Read to Ride through a program in Vermont, then put her own twists on it. She’s partnered with area schools, libraries, and organizations like the Boys and Girls Club.

This year 12 kids won bikes and helmets through the program. In Hingham, seven-year-old Cosette Yungton won a bike and helmet. Her winning book was The Mystery of Camp Creepy, by Lucinda Landon. “We received an email about the contest because we’re on their email list,” said Sabina Yungton Cosette’s mother. “I told Cosette the date the contest started, and we went to the library, and she started reading. I told her the more books she reads, the more chances she would have. She started reading Memorial Day weekend, and I think she was reading about 10 chapter books a week. The third week we got the call that she won, and she was thrilled. It was a really good motivator. She hasn’t stopped reading. We’re eagerly waiting on getting her bike. She’s looking forward to one without training wheels.”

Some of the other winners read as many as 50 books, and Hagearty reported that this year, Dependable Cleaners drew winners from over 1,600 books read. Children participating in the program over the last 13 years have read over 56,000 books. “The thank you notes we get are so cute,” Hagearty said.

She’s very proud of being able to reward all that reading, and happy that other organizations are doing similar things. “When we started Read to Ride 13 years ago, there were no other programs like it,” Hagearty said. “Since then the Red Sox and the Bruins have done things like it. The more programs out there that inspire kids to read, the better.”

Read more: Giving back to the community - Cohasset, MA - Cohasset Mariner http://www.wickedlocal.com/cohasset/archive/x1837747876/Giving-back-to-the-community#ixzz1VU5SChVy