It all started with a truck.

Not just any truck. A white Ford F-150 Lariat with a leather interior — the pickup truck that Amanda Goff had dreamed about owning for years. A hardworking single mother of twins, she spent years saving up for it.

But when her teenage son needed a truck to launch his landscaping business, his mother handed him the keys.

It was a great sacrifice — but also a wise investment. As Josh Goff’s business grew, he decided to leave community college and do landscaping full time. After a few years, he longed for a new challenge.

“It’s nice to see a freshly manicured lawn,” he says, but what he really enjoyed was transforming outdoor spaces. He taught himself how to work with pavers and build patios, and in 10 years, Goff built his one-man business into a seven-person hard-scaping company. What Goff loves, he says, is the pleasure “it brings people to have a really beautiful, fun space to enjoy with their family at their house.”

Goff brings this joy not only to his clients but also to dozens of charitable causes. After his mother was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006 (she has since recovered), he began donating materials and fire pit installations to help raise funds for the VCU Massey Cancer Center. If you visited this year’s Street of Hope designer-house event in Hallsley, you saw his handiwork: a round patio with a central fire pit for the featured house, which raised $250,000 for Massey. Goff has given his labor to Cosby High School and the Richmond Symphony Designer House. He also volunteers at FeedMore, and has an idea for a charity of his own that would repair old grills and donate them to people in need. It’s a cause close to his heart: “I don’t even cook inside,” he says, laughing.