With a focus on supporting local organizations, empowering employees and building a corporate culture of service, the Midway Foundation invests in its community.
The Foundation, headed by executive director Claudia Freels, was established in 2003 as a means for Midway, the real estate investment and development company behind CityCentre, to annually give back a portion of its profits. Since its creation, the Midway Foundation has gifted $4 million to local charities.
Brad Freels, Midway’s chairman, says, “For years, we gave to different things as people came and asked. In 2004, we centralized the foundation and tried to create a focus that was a little more directive. We try to focus on things that our employees are interested in ... If there’s a common thread it’s children.”
Claudia adds, “We try to empower the Midway team members to serve the underprivileged, support education, improve health and strengthen our communities.”
The Midway Foundation is an extension of the corporate culture and company initiatives present within Midway. The Foundation will match employee financial support for an organization up to $500 per employee annually. Each employee is given one day a month to give back to the charity of their choice. Employees are encouraged to find an area they are passionate about and give their time. The company also tries to organize a company-wide volunteer day once a year. Last year, they worked in teams homebuilding for Rebuilding Together Houston.
The Foundation supports school drives and holiday gift drives, the Salvation Army, Harbor Lights Choir, Casa de Esparanza, Spring Spirit, Dress for Success, and Trees for Houston among many other local organizations.
One of the Foundation’s large projects this year is a facility for Halo House. Founded in 2009 by Dr. Nathan Fowler of MD Anderson, Halo House offers reduced-cost housing for patients and families in town for blood cancer treatment.
Another avenue of income for the Midway Foundation is the b4 hand sanitizer products produced by Midway Advanced Products, a division of Midway. Concerned that slower Houston markets in the real estate recession meant charities were receiving fewer donations, Brad came up with an idea for a product that could be produced to make its own revenue, which could go back to helping others. B4 products are distributed wholesale through select travel partners. The b4 mission aims to give 50% of the proceeds from sales of its products to Midway Foundation charities.
The Midway Foundation has a vision of creating and supporting “enduring investments and remarkable places that enrich people’s lives.” Both Brad and Claudia Freels believe that employees are given many talents to make them successful in investment and commercial development that translate into success outside the office as well. They hope to encourage employees and others to take their talents and use them to serve, support and grow their communities. Chairman Freels says, “You’ve got to learn to give when you don’t have it, so you know how to give when you do.”
The encouragement is inspiring Midway employees to use their talents for new and innovative service.
For example, a Midway engineer was made aware of air conditioning problems faced by Yellowstone Academy. He inspected the Midway-owned buildings fronting I-10 that were slated for demolition and discovered the chillers were only 5 years old. He took initiative to organize sub-contractors to remove them from the old buildings and install them at Yellowstone Academy. Freels notes, “He saw a problem, figured out a solution and made the solution happen.”
The community focus headed up by the Foundation can be seen at CityCentre as well. Child Advocates holds a fun run starting from the plaza every fall; one of the fountains on the plaza is dedicated to Living Water; and a portion of all paid parking at CityCentre goes to support Memorial Assistance Ministries (MAM). Claudia says, “I just knew MAM was a great organization, so when we were changing over our meters to start charging, it just seemed logical that if we were collecting from the community, we should be giving back. MAM is a local Spring Branch charity that gives back to this community.”
Through the empowerment of employees and investment of time and profits into the community, the Midway Foundation hopes to build more than great places for families to live, work and play in the Memorial District.