One thing that has been on my mind for, oh, roughly a decade now is finding a bigger way for Dallas Maids to give back to our community here, in Dallas, Texas. We already partner with Cleaning for a Reason, donating free cleanings for cancer patients since 2014, and over the years we’ve done other projects too, such as our First Responder Fatigue Relief Fund, providing free cleanings for overworked first responders during COVID, and other charitable efforts here and there, along with spontaneous love like this. But there’s one idea I’ve wanted to organize for years and somehow never seem to find enough hours in the day to actually make happen.

I’d love for Dallas Maids to eventually put together an annual donation drive, maybe around Christmas. One thing you learn very quickly in the cleaning business is that people leave behind an astonishing amount of perfectly useful stuff when they move. Clothes, household items, furniture, decorations, sometimes enough to make you wonder whether they actually moved or simply abandoned civilization.

I’ve always thought it would be great if we could collect some of those usable items and donate them to people who need them. We could even make it easy for our regular customers. If they have clothes or household items they no longer want, they could simply place them in a bag before their cleaning. Our teams could pick the bags up afterward, and Dallas Maids could periodically deliver everything to a local charity. Simple for the customer. Helpful to the community. And considerably better than perfectly good things ending up in a landfill.

I’m writing the idea down here partly because I’ve learned that sometimes when you put an idea out into the world, eventually somebody says, “Hey, why aren’t we doing that?” And then suddenly you’re doing it… which brings me to Angela.

Recently, Angela, who heads Dallas Maids, organized something I absolutely loved! She brought together volunteers from our Dallas Maids team to spend part of the day helping Habitat for Humanity at a Habitat ReStore. Now, for anyone unfamiliar with Habitat ReStore, donations and purchases there help support Habitat for Humanity’s mission of building affordable homes for families in need. And our team got to volunteer, help the community, spend time together, and probably discover muscles they had forgotten existed. It was exactly the kind of thing I’ve always hoped Dallas Maids would do more of. But Angela didn’t stop there.

Because apparently helping build a better community is exhausting work and must immediately be followed by pedicures. So after volunteering, the ladies headed to Lemon Nail Bar Salon for manicures, pedicures, massages, and some well-earned relaxation. Then they wrapped up the day with dinner at Texano Cocina. So the basic itinerary was:

• Help humanity.
• Get your nails done.
• Eat.

Now, that sounds like a very well-balanced day.

Angel let me know that the ladies had a wonderful time laughing, relaxing, and simply enjoying one another’s company. And from everything I heard, it turned into one of those days people remember, not because anything extravagant happened, but because they spent it doing something meaningful together.

Afterward, Angela thanked me for my kindness and generosity in making the day possible, but she was giving me far too much credit. The real credit belongs to Angela because she came up with the idea, she organized the Habitat for Humanity volunteer event, she arranged the spa visit and dinner afterward. I basically played the highly demanding executive role of saying, “Yes, that sounds great.”

And somehow I still ended up getting thanked (see the “Greg, Gracias” video at bottom). Being the owner has its perks.

What I appreciate most about Angela is that she doesn’t just care about running Dallas Maids well. She cares about our customers, our employees, and the community around us. That matters a lot to me. Of course businesses obviously need to make money. Otherwise they become very short-lived charities with surprisingly complicated tax returns. But I’ve always believed a good business should do more than generate revenue. It should create jobs, take care of people, serve its customers well, and hopefully leave the community a little better than it found it. Angela understands that.

I’m equally grateful for our entire Dallas Maids team because they work incredibly hard every day to make our customers happy. And none of this exists without our amazing customers. They are why Dallas Maids exists. They are the reason our employees have jobs. They are the reason we’re able to support families, participate in programs like Cleaning for a Reason, volunteer with organizations like Habitat for Humanity, and occasionally reward a hard day of volunteering with a spa and tacos.

So to our customers: thank you. You may think you’re simply hiring someone to clean your home but indirectly, you’re helping make all of this possible too. And now, about that Christmas donation drive I mentioned earlier…

Angela, if you happen to be reading this, please understand that I am absolutely not assigning you another project. You already have plenty on your plate. This is merely an innocent little idea casually placed in a public blog post where you will almost certainly see it. But if someday you happen to organize it, I’ll pretend I never planted the idea here in the first place.

To finish, I’ll leave you with something Angela said after the Habitat event… “Volunteering is truly fulfilling. Giving isn’t always about money or things — we can also give something just as valuable, or even more valuable: our time.”

I couldn’t agree more. Thank you, Angela, and thank you to everyone on our team who gave some of their time to help others. You made Dallas Maids proud. And more importantly, you made somebody’s day a little better. That’s a pretty good day’s work.