Born into poverty, Ron Papke took matters into his own hands and decided to change his life around. He has since dedicated his life to helping others do the same.
Papke, a South Bend native, took charge of his life by starting his business, Quality Carpet Care, in 2003.
“I just always had a passion for helping others and to clean stuff and the opportunity arose to where I was able to start cleaning carpet. Then we started venturing into all other types of cleaning as well,” Papke said.
Papke’s business provides him the opportunity to give back to his community by allowing first responders to rent carpet cleaning machines, free of charge. He also gives back to his community by being a motivational and inspirational speaker.
“After I made some life changes for myself, you know I grew up really poor, and once I started reaching some success, I really wanted to help others do the same. I saw that there was a need for that locally and it was just another way to give back to help others climb the ladder of success a little quicker,” Papke said.
Recently, Papke has been giving talks at service industry expos, but Papke’s real passion lies in speaking to incarcerated youth.
“One of my favorite things to do is being able to go into prisons and speak to the inmates at the juvenile detention centers. To talk to them and share my story, how I was able to change my life, and hope that it inspires someone else to do the same,” he said.
When speaking to at-risk youth, Papke shares his own story in hopes to inspire them to change their life as he once did.
“When I was a child, I made a lot of bad decisions, got into a lot of trouble, hung around the wrong crowd, and I know it's easy to go down that rabbit hole. So when I got away from all of that and started doing good for my life, I decided those are the kinds of people I want to help,” he said. “Let them know that there’s an opportunity. I know it can be challenging to change your life and get away from those kinds of people, but it is possible. So it's that possibility that I like to share with others.”
Papke believes that by changing one person’s life he can be a catalyst for good and create a chain reaction that will help to better the community and the people in it.
“If you change one person’s life and it has a real effect, that person can help the next person and we can all help each other get a little better,” he said. “There’s no shortage of negativity and bad things out there. We all have to do our part to try to be positive and help one another.”
Papke has also authored two self-help books.
“It was just another thing to help people. I wasn’t a book reader. So I wrote a book the way that I would have wanted it to be written so that people who aren't used to reading books wouldn't be intimidated by a big book,” Papke said.
When Papke isn’t running his business or inspiring others, he enjoys riding his motorcycle.
“Being able to see other people happy that you've been there is always a good thing. Knowing that you're helping them change their life whether it be speaking or cleaning in their house, no matter what I do it's helping someone with their life and that's a good feeling,” Papke said.