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Church Brothers Immersed in their Community and Beyond

Published Friday, October 1, 2010 7:00 am
by Teresa L. Russel

The following article was written by Bill Brooks and was published in the October, 2010 edition of Urban Times.

     Count the Concord Neighborhood Center's executive director as a big fan of Church Brothers.

     "You know the many holes we have in our bucket," Niki Lynn Girls wrote after a recent fund-raising effort, "and keeping them plugged couldn't be done without you and the team."

     But Concord - located not all that far away from the Near Southside home of Church Brothers - is far from the only organization which has been helped by the family-owned collision repair company.  And geography isn't the main factor.

     "It's what we've always tried to do - to do as much as we can for the community," explained Dan and Rhonda Hall, the Chatham Arch residents who co-own the business, but have turned the reigns of the daily operation over to company president and son-in-law, Ted McClintic.

     Dan Hall, in fact, calls himself the "janitor," a post he held when he started working there as a teenager.  (Hall worked his way up the ladder, eventually buying the firm, and continuing the tradition of a family-owned company.  But that's another story.)  Hall said that although the company has always tried to help not only the community but its own employees, the past few years have seen an increased level of involvement as Church Brothers redirected advertising and billboard money to more worthy causes.

     The beneficiaries have been many:  the Warren Central Band Boosters, helped by a car wash at the firm's Shadeland Avenue branch; toy drives for the Tony Stewart foundation; food drives for Avon Kingsway Christian Church, Riley Children's Hospital, Old Bethel United Methodist Church, Johnson County Salvation Army; Primrose of West Fishers; the Indianapolis Soap Box Derby; and Sheltering Wings, a domestic violence center in Danville.  Of that organization, Rhonda said, "We try to do what we can, here and there.  So many people out there need help."

     In October 2005, Church Brothers employees created what they call the Church M.I.C.E. program, the letters standing for "motivated, involved and caring employees."  That program allows employees to make payroll deductions to help such causes as well, with the company matching the donations.  A committee decides where the money goes.

     One of the many beneficiaries is the "Driving Down Hunger" food drive.  The third annual drive, which ended this summer, raised over 2,500 pounds of food and other household items, as well as $5,000 donated by Church Brothers customers, vendors, the Employee Charitable Giving Fund and the company itself.  In the past three years, McClintic said, the food drive has supplied almost seven tons of food to local food pantries.

     "I cannot begin to express how proud I am of all our stores and the way they have given back to the community," McClintic said.

     Cash isn't the only way to contribute.  Church Brothers recently painted eight Soap Box Derby cars for inner-city youngsters, McClintic noted:  And, for Grace Community Church, the company staged "Car Care Saturday," performing service and safety checks on cars for 25 pre-qualified families.

     But the Concord Center just might be the closest to Rhonda's heart, at least in part because of the many ways the company has been able to help, beyond stocking food pantry shelves.  "Our employees have made blankets," she said, "and over the years we've made hats and scarves."  Employees have donated toys at Christmas, and fixed the center's van.

     This year, the effort included providing graduation gowns for the center's preschool graduation ceremony.  Said Concord's executive director, in a letter everyone at Church Brothers, "Once again you and the team have made a difference in our ability to keep the 'ball in the air' for serving our folks on the Southside.  Thanks . . . for your never-ending advocacy for those we serve at Concord."