Rea & Associates Inc.
Supporting our community has been an integral part of our firm’s culture ever since Richard Rea founded the firm in 1938. In the 11 communities in which our offices are located, we provide both volunteer and monetary support.
Rea & Associates Inc. developed a value statement called “The Rea Way” which reads in part, “Invest in your family, your community and your future.” Our employees have always embraced the sentiment of giving back as a value upon which our firm was founded. The firm also established and maintains a foundation into which contributions are made and charitable donations are drawn from annually to benefit our local communities.
Our team members are encouraged to become involved in their local communities. Since philanthropy is such a big part of our culture, we don’t have to use a hard sell. Because our team members work and live in the area, they already have a vested interest in helping in their communities.
In addition, our firm promotes a firmwide holiday food drive called “Help Can Hunger.” Each office collects food in a friendly competition between the offices, and the food is donated to a local charity in each office’s community. Last year, members of the firm raised a total of more than 12 tons of food for our local community charity programs, and we hope to top that total this year since the need is greater than ever.
We work with our various office locations to determine which organizations have the greatest need. Like most donors, Rea & Associates faces greater accountability for each dollar we donate, so we now place a greater emphasis on those organizations with which we have professional ties. We use this process to review scholarship donations to accounting programs at universities around the state and donations to foundations within our professional associations, as well.
McDonald Hopkins LLC
At McDonald Hopkins, we encourage all of our people to develop and apply their talents to serve not only our clients and firm but our communities, as well. Our people devote significant volunteer hours and the firm consistently contributes considerable financial resources to help ensure the strength of our communities. Once we identify local needs, we take action. Whether we are performing pro bono legal work, undertaking public service functions, such as board service for nonprofit entities, or becoming involved in charitable campaigns, we focus always on serving those in our communities who need us most.
The needs of the communities we serve guide and frame what we do. We have an ongoing commitment to support a variety of important community service projects and nonprofit organizations. The challenging economic environment has not changed our commitment to community service. The needs are greater and we continue to contribute both financially and with volunteer hours to more than 150 nonprofit organizations. For example, we are a United Way Pacesetter company. In addition to group projects, McDonald Hopkins works with Business Volunteers Unlimited to train and place our attorneys on boards where they are passionate about a need in the community and can make a positive impact.
We are particularly proud of our pro bono program, which was recently recognized for its efforts to initiate the Juvenile Pro Se Clinic. McDonald Hopkins in Cleveland is working with the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court and the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland to provide those in need with free legal assistance. The goal of the clinic is not to establish an attorney-client relationship but rather to permit indigent people to proceed in the court on their own, with properly drawn documents and an understanding of their next steps. Our volunteer lawyers, after intensive training, meet with income-eligible litigants who have been pre-identified by Legal Aid. We work to empower these litigants to go forward in their own cases and give the court what it needs to make a good decision in each case.
FirstMerit Bank
Caring about building a stronger community has been one of the foundations of FirstMerit Bank and a longstanding commitment to those we serve. Each year, employees perform thousands of hours of volunteer work and donate hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The FirstMerit Foundation increased total charitable distributions by greater than 3 percent in 2009, supporting programs and services assisting an estimated 6.6 million people. Contributions to 16 area United Way programs increased 12 percent and funding increased by 71 percent for economic development and community housing programs as well as providing focused funding for financial literacy education, emergency response services and food bank agencies.
FirstMerit’s Community Reinvestment Act segment was awarded the highest possible rating, “Outstanding,” in recognition of its efforts in 2009. CRA provided $38 million in affordable housing lending and investments. Projects during the year included the $4 million Washington Homes Project in Akron, creating 34 single-family homes for low- to moderate-income families and the $3.1 million Maplewood Village in Portage County, providing 50 units of affordable housing to low-income seniors. FirstMerit made an investment of $1 million in the Ohio Equity Fund XIX-A, which provides low-income housing tax credits, and its work with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati secured $775,000 in funding for affordable housing programs in Cleveland and Akron.
More than 50 percent of all FirstMerit charitable giving goes toward meeting critical community needs through organizations like United Way, American Red Cross and food banks. In total, continuing support of charitable investments and direct lending initiatives provided $40 million to FirstMerit communities in 2009.
