Molly Maid Helping Women Enter the Work Force
Good golly, Ms. Molly.
For two local franchise owners of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Molly Maid, being in business is about more than just making a profit.
Karen and Richard Schmelter, owners of the East County/Bonita franchise area of Molly Maid, are active in San Diego County’s welfare-to-work program and are also strong advocates of Molly Maid’s national anti-domestic violence organization, the Ms. Molly Foundation.
The local Molly Maid franchise works side by side with the local welfare-to-work program, Ready, Willing and Able. The franchise also works with Calworks and several job development programs.
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob cited Molly Maid as one of many San Diego employers committed to the Ready, Willing and Able program in a ceremony earlier this year. Thanks to the 200 participating companies, San Diego has saved about $500 million in taxpayer contributions to welfare since 1994, she said.
The Schmelters are also active participants in Ms. Molly’s “Making a Difference” drive to assist victims of domestic violence by providing financial and in-kind support to safe houses and shelters, education and other activities.
Every October, Molly Maid franchises across the country ask their clients to donate toiletries, clothing and other items for local women’s shelters. Oftentimes, women and children will flee a violent situation with nothing but the clothes on their backs and no place to go, Karen Schmelter noted.
Partnership
Locally, the Schmelters have a partnership with Crisis House. Recently, the Schmelters asked their clients to donate clothing suitable for job interviews to help women get back on their feet. Molly Maid collected an entire garage full of clothing, Richard Schmelter said.
Karen Schmelter noted a key reason for the huge response. Domestic violence is an issue that resonates heavily with women, and women are a key portion of Molly Maid’s demographic, she said.
Because people are working longer hours and are also active in the community, couples don’t want to spend their limited free time doing housework, or arguing over whose turn it is to clean, Karen Schmelter said.
The Schmelters’ Molly Maid franchise has benefited from the lack of time most couples have for housework. With 24 full-time employees, their franchise handles about 400 regular clients, about 200 occasional customers, and about 300 one-time cleanings every year. Projected revenues for calendar year 2000 are about $700,000, Richard Schmelter said.
Countywide, another Molly Maid franchise is opening in the San Marcos area, sometime in July. Together with the currently operating franchises, Molly Maid will cover about 60 percent of San Diego County, he said.
An advantage to employees is each franchise provides vehicles to get workers from their office location to the clients , which Richard Schmelter called an unusual practice. In car-crazy California, he noted only “three or four” other companies that do this.
It especially benefits new Molly Maid employees who don’t have access to a car in order to work , often a limiting factor in getting people off the welfare rolls and into jobs, Karen Schmelter said.
In fact, people starting out at Molly Maid don’t even have to know how to drive. Maids travel to a work site in teams, so someone who doesn’t know how to drive will always be paired with someone who does, she said.
Providing the vehicle for the maids assists not only the workers, but also the company’s bottom line. The 11 “team vehicles” the franchise owns are clearly marked with the company logo, which is good advertising for Molly Maid, Karen Schmelter said.
Booming Business
Kelly Templer, a spokeswoman for Molly Maid, noted that business is booming. She pointed to a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times which said that people spend about $20 billion a year on housecleaning services.
The industry will continue to be hot until at least 2006, with demand outpacing the supply, the article noted.
