Rahim Bey in one of the hallways of Mastery Pickett that his team cleans on a daily basis. (Photo: Maleka Fruean)

38-year-old Rahim Bey always liked to clean. For him, it was a form of escapism, a feeling of peace that came from being in a fresh space. Growing up around physical and mental abuse, drug use, and other trauma, cleaning became a way for him to get away and clear his head. 

Now he owns and operates Rahim’s Cleaning Service, a company that serves residential and commercial clients, including the corporate offices of Mastery Charter Schools at the Pickett campus in Germantown. 

Spring 2026 marked the company’s five-year anniversary, which launched at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, after he took what he calls a leap of faith, quit his full-time cleaning job, and started his own business.

Sharing his life candidly with Germantown Info Hub, Bey says he was put into foster care at eight years old. He was in foster care most of his childhood, and his sister was given custody of him when he was 15 years old.

He grew up around physical and mental abuse, drug and substance abuse, and some of the foster & group homes he was placed in brought worse situations than what he had often just left. The effects of the trauma around him left him feeling depressed and searching for answers. 

He questioned whether he would ever find peace.

As he grew into adulthood, he realized that what he had been through had given him a resilience that others might not have.

“I always tell people I’m glad I’ve been through those things because it made me such a strong-minded individual.  You know, I’m not glad I’ve been through it, but I feel like it was for a reason, basically.”

It’s why he feels such a strong pull to give back to the community around him and to the youth he employs. And it’s one of the reasons his business operates around the values he holds — respect, humility, and empathy.

Growing his business… and his mentorship

Bey had always worked full-time for various cleaning companies, but after the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided to create his own business.

Today, it has 20 employees. They handle both residential and commercial cleaning, junk removals, and power washing jobs. 

Many of his current clients are people who knew him in his old jobs and knew the quality of his work. It’s how he was connected to his Mastery Pickett assignment. 

For Bey, the business is about more than just the quality of his work. It’s an opportunity to create jobs and support young people in the community. Bey has been able to employ students out of the Mastery Charter Rebound program — serving young people who may need mental and behavioral health support.

He instills a strong work ethic in his employees, mostly by modeling it himself. Through the business, he teaches young folks to take pride in a job well done, work hard when the job requires it, and show up even if it’s difficult.

Bey prides himself on his work ethic, as well as on giving others a chance and treating everyone fairly and with respect.

“I’m your supervisor, but I’m also an employee, too,” he says to his team. And he makes sure to check in on them and let them know they can talk to him about life outside of the job. Bey said he can really resonate with a lot of what the students are dealing with. 

“That’s why I’m so glad and so thankful that I’m able to do the work with young kids.  Because a lot of times we may feel like the kids are acting out, but I know firsthand, based on my story, you never know what somebody is going through,” he said.

He has helped students at Mastery Pickett if they needed money for field trips, and has quietly evolved into a community leader as his business has grown. 

Bey remembers the beginning of this year, when his company was called to clean up at a Chipotle Restaurant on the Temple University campus, where a 16-year-old boy was shot and killed. After the forensic clean-up team, the restaurant asked Bey’s company to clean the scene. 

It affected him greatly to see such a young man murdered. He had to take a couple of days off after that job.

“It’s like, we’ll hear story after story, and it’s the same stuff over and over again, like, we gotta keep doing better.  But nobody is really putting actions behind their words into action. So that situation made me like, I have to do something to make sure I’m doing my part in the community to make sure that, you know, if I can save as many kids as I can, I’m going to do it,” said Bey. 

It was that situation that pushed him further into mentorship and service, which he was already considering. To start, he wanted to give young people employment who may not have been given a chance at it. 

If the young people he worked with asked him for things, he found ways to incentivize them and show them how they could earn them. At the same time, he let them know that if they ever really needed anything, he would be there for them. 

He ensures his employees are paid fairly and that their everyday needs are met. He knows that the more hours some of them are working, the less time they have to get into things that won’t be good for them.

More than just a job

Elijah Dixon is 18 years old and graduated from Mastery Pickett. He started working for Bey this past spring when he was still a student.

He appreciated Bey’s good nature and the way he showed him how to clean well and take accountability. But he also just likes getting the work done. 

“It’s something for you to do, instead of being outside in the streets and not doing nothing. It’s a job (that can) distract you,” said Dixon. 

Dixon even encouraged his friends to work with him and brought his friend James Jones onto the team. 

Jones, a 17-year-old senior at Mastery Pickett, started working for Bey around the same time Dixon was hired. He felt really comfortable working in the same environment where he went to school. 

And besides learning how to thoroughly clean a basement, clean out vents, and use a pressure washer, what else had he learned?

“Time management. After I do something, like, check to see if it’s really all the way there.  Like, being more responsible.”

Bey tries to show respect to the young people he works with and trusts them. He doesn’t like micromanaging, but he does try to show them the best way to get things done.

Miguel Ramos, a 20-year-old who has been working for Bey since he was a senior at Mastery Pickett, likes the way he manages the staff.

“I like working for Rahim because he don’t judge you, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, he stops and he shows you. He don’t just be ready to throw it in your face like, no, you did this wrong.  No, he just gives you hand training, and he shows you how to do it.  So next time it happens, you already know how to do it because he already showed you the first time,” said Ramos. 

Ramos plans to stay with the business as long as Bey needs his services. He likes the team, and he likes making sure the spaces they clean are safe for both them and the people in the buildings. 

For Bey, the work still needs to grow beyond the business. He plans to expand his community service work, looking for ways to integrate resource sharing and giveaways. Last year, he even hosted a Christmas food drive, which received a great response from students and staff. 

But it’s really the young people and their outlook on life that warms his heart the most. 

“Some of the teachers have written me notes since some of the kids have started employment. Their grades started improving, and they’re more focused in the classroom, and they don’t argue.  They’d be like, I’m not trying to lose my job and things like that.  So it’s good to hear those things.  And I mean, I just feel so blessed, like, to be in a position to change somebody’s mindset for the betterment.”

For now, he wants all the young people he comes across to feel heard and feel like someone is watching out for them, especially his young staff.

“I feel like it’s my obligation as an employer to make sure they are taken care of. It may just be a conversation that may make their day feel better,” Bey said. 

“You know, just making sure they’re fine at work, but also they’re fine outside of work. Going above and beyond that goes a long way.”

Maleka Fruean is Germantown Info Hub’s community organizer, a writer, and mother of four, all raised in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. She has a B.A. in journalism from Temple University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from St. Joseph’s University, and uses both to embrace the power of stories.