Wednesday evening at the Seattle Business Magazine Community Impact Awards dinner, we at Kinzer Partners were honored to receive the award for Pro Bono Project of 2016! The award was specifically for our work with Mary’s Place and Amazon to secure the former Travelodge in South Lake Union for use as a temporary emergency shelter. Kris Richey Curtis accepted the award with our colleagues Brian Pfau and Sherry Lawson of Amazon, and Marty Hartman, the tireless Executive Director for Mary’s place who has dedicated 17 years to helping homeless women, children and families in our community.
It is important to emphasize that we couldn’t have completed this project without the tremendous support of Amazon. Not only did they donate an entire building, fully furnished and built out, but the entire Amazon community all the way up to the top has completely embraced the Mary’s Place Community.
Kinzer Partners has been providing real estate brokerage and consulting services to locally headquartered companies in this region for the last 24 years, and we know the success of our clients depends on a thriving community. For this reason, we make it a point to dedicate time to pro bono work, community and board service, and to diligently support our non-profit clients including Seattle Children’s Hospital, and The Nature Conservancy. And for our more direct giving, we are proud to have been included on this year’s Puget Sound Business Journal 2016 Corporate Citizenship Awards Corporate Philanthropists list in the small companies category.
“Corporate real estate should go beyond cost per square foot and a great location,” Kris said in a statement to Seattle Business Magazine. “We believe that happiness and the productivity of employees depends on a thriving and engaged community with access to all basic resources – housing, health, safety and nature – as well as access to jobs, transportation and a rich talent pool.” The work of Mary’s Place “No Child Sleeps Outside Campaign” has become increasingly important to our organization because our community has found itself embroiled in a crisis of homelessness. We truly believe that no child should be left out in the cold in a city like Seattle that is thriving, innovative, and prosperous.
So as the year is quickly coming to a close, we pledge to continue our dedication to the success of our clients and our community, guiding the real estate decisions of Seattle-area businesses and organizations toward the best results for their brands and their missions.
