This is a story about a Mueller metal building that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. That’s because of what’s done within its walls. It’s also because of how it came to be.
Mueller Lends A Helping Hand
Every year, Mueller Inc. seeks out a deserving non-profit organization in Texas to receive a free Mueller metal building. This year, the 10th recipient was Family Ties Family Resource Service in Waller.
“I was also in a deep dark place when I was a teenager,” says Hannah. “Heather and Family Ties really helped me through that.”
Family Ties Family Resource Services is a children’s and family crisis center that strives to serve victims of family violence, sexual assault, bullying and other children’s crisis issues.
“Some kids that have slept in bathrooms in gas stations,” says Heather Stautmeister, Executive Director and Founder of Family Ties. “Many of them are doing it so they can go to school the next morning.”
The Mueller family at work
The building is donated by Mueller. The hands that build it? Company volunteers who gather to lend their help—it’s practically a family tradition among Mueller employees.
“They take a week of their time, come from four different states, come together and put this building together for the non- profit,” Says Mike Fry of Mueller Inc.
For more than 85 years, Mueller has served generations of satisfied customers. Mueller manufactures every steel component with top-quality 26-gauge steel. And, with a variety of color options and limited paint warranties up to 30 years, Mueller metal buildings look great for years.
This Mueller building is big inside
The building has s clear span; there are no interior columns, you can actually do whatever you want inside its 40-foot width and 100-foot length. This allows Family Ties the flexibility to house 12 individual rooms for teens, victims of violence and abuse… a safe steel sanctuary.
“We just told them what we needed,” says Stautmeister. “We told them what the problem was and that we couldn’t do it by ourselves.”
Family Ties expressed their gratitude by naming it, “Mueller House, Where Smiles and Dreams Happen.”
“For these forty guys who worked these three days to put this building up, for them to be able to see what they did, would be named after the company they worked for, that was very special,” Fry added.
Not all teens in trouble get an opportunity like this. But, for the ones that do, this building will matter.
“It matters for those twelve, and the twelve that come behind it, and the twelve that come behind them,” says Stautmeister.
