Delray Beach, Fla. – The Office of Gov. Ron DeSantis has included janitorial companies on the list of Essential Businesses that can operate during the mandatory shutdown to help slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Likewise, Palm Beach County has added janitorial companies to its list of Critical Businesses that can continue to operate.

“Kenland Janitorial & Property Management is helping to slow the spread of the COVID-19 by offering our customers disinfecting cleaning services using EPA-registered products that help kill some strands of the Human Coronavirus,” says Lori J. Durante who operates the business.

The company was started by her father Kenneth Durante more than 40 years ago.

In continuous operation since the day the business started, Kenland Janitorial & Property Management is the oldest African American owned cleaning company in Palm Beach County, she said.

WAITER CIRCUIT

Kenneth Durante, a native of Goldsboro, NC, found his way to Delray Beach as part of the Traveling African American Waiter Circuit of black men who worked professionally as waiters during the era of legal segregation, she said.

By 1968 he had settled in Delray Beach with his wife and children, and in 1978 launched the commercial and residential cleaning business which is a portmanteau of his name “Kenneth.”

Kenland services commercial and residential clients in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, the Town of Gulf Stream, Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach.

EXPERTISE

The experience of Kenland Janitorial includes post-construction cleaning for Delray Beach Community Hospital (Medical Center) when it was built in the 1980s.

The family-owned janitorial company also provided the post-construction cleaning for the Fair Oaks Hospital in Delray Beach.

Kenland Janitorial has cleaned for Florida Atlantic University (gym) in Boca Raton, Delray Beach City Hall and the Delray Beach Fire Department, as well as some local grade schools, to name a few.

The elder Durante has since retired but the company has transitioned to the second generation through his daughter Lori, who took over the business more than a decade ago.

The company still is located in Delray Beach and can be reached at 561-499-1386 or visit kenlandservice@aol.com