When Professional Janitorial Services (PJS) Houston Operations Manager Jamie Flores learned an employee was struggling to fund her aging mother’s root canal and bridge due to a lack of dental insurance coverage, he immediately began to search for resources and landed on El Centro de Corazon (El Centro), which offers low or no cost urgent medical and dental care, ESL classes, and legal services.
“Everybody needs help and it’s okay to ask for help,” Flores said in an interview. “We want to continue to provide our employees with not only a good job that pays a fair wage but also with resources out there that they might not know about. The last I heard was that the mom did go to an appointment at El Centro de Corazon and is waiting to see the specialist.”
Co-founded by Brent Southwell, PJS Houston is a commercial janitorial company that maintains more than 300 accounts in about 40 million square feet of buildings with some 1,400 employees. Last year, PJS Houston donated $10,000 to the non profit, El Centro, which is located in East downtown Houston.
“It’s an organization that PJS not only supports financially but is also involved in their community outreach,” Flores said. “Occasionally, they need a tent, water, or oscillating fans and we can provide that to make sure their events are more successful for them.”
The next El Centro event is a food drive in September for families in need who have kids returning to school.
“We put out ads or we advertise about the event weeks before and place collection booths and containers throughout the city,” Flores said. “We like to partner up with buildings that we clean for and get permission from the property manager to set up not only collection boxes but also the signage. That makes it easier for us to know where the donation stations are, to go pick them up and deliver to Centro de Corazon.”
El Centro is just one charity that PJS Houston is committed to supporting.
Prior to the pandemic, the Houston Area Women’s Center on Waugh Drive, which caters to battered and abused women, hosted a toy drive that PJS Houston assisted with. Although the event was cancelled last year due to COVID-19, the toy drive will resume in October, according to Flores.
“In 2019, we had so much participation internally from our employees who donated toys that we didn’t have to go out and put collection boxes up,” he said.
Last year, Flores was one of 10 PJS Houston employees who participated in the Virtual Lemon Climb, which raised $6,000 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a financial hub for parents whose children have cancer to assist in securing expense money while they undergo treatment.
“Our involvement in these various organizations stems from us wanting to partner with our employees and not necessarily with a particular organization or cause but just our employees,” Flores said. “When we talk to our employees and learn about their situation, both socially and economically, they often reference their go-to organizations and we try to support those organizations.”
PJS Houston was connected with Alex’s Lemonade Stand through a janitorial customer whose 4-year-old cousin died of cancer lymphoma, “This client actually is a founding member for the Houston chapter of Alex’s Lemonade Stand,” Flores added. “It’s unfortunate that organizations like Alex’s Lemonade Stand exist but it’s also a great thing because it gives people relief in an already stressful situation.”
Juliette Fairley has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.
