Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, the Milwaukee Brewers™ and Habitat for Humanity Join Forces AGAIN To Serve Our Communities. Fairway Licensing Specialist Alex Kroll moved to Milwaukee five years ago, when he transferred from UW Oshkosh to Marquette University midway through his undergraduate studies. Immediately, he began to feel a bond with his new town.
“I love being close to Lake Michigan, and all the sports teams make Milwaukee a really fun place to be,” Kroll said. “It really feels like a community here, one I could see myself sticking around in for a long time.”
Little did he know that his first job out of college would provide him the opportunity to partner with both the Milwaukee Brewers, and Habitat for Humanity Milwaukee, to strengthen the community he had come to love. After joining Fairway in 2020, Kroll volunteered alongside members of the Fairway family as committed to the company’s vision as he is and with members of the Brewers organization at two Milwaukee Habitat builds, one in 2021 and the latest in May 2022.
At both of those builds, Brewers’ starting pitcher, Brandon Woodruff, and his family were also hard at work, swinging hammers to help ensure that other families throughout Milwaukee had an affordable place to call home in the city that embraced them.
It was a busy day for the Crew off the diamond!@B_Woody24 and his family built a house for a family in need with Habitat for Humanity and @FairwayMC.
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) May 20, 2022
Meanwhile, Rowdy and Boxberger visited @Aurora_Health to thank the emergency, trauma and ICU teams for their hard work. pic.twitter.com/nte2YjLM2P
Partnerships That Strengthen Milwaukee Communities
“We love partnering with Fairway and with Habitat for Humanity because it’s just so joyous to be able to put a house over a family’s head,” Woodruff said during that latest Habitat build in May.
“Family is super important to me, and it’s just so cool to come out here and be able to provide a house for a family.”
Fairway’s deep commitment to giving back to the communities is something that the company’s service-oriented employees across the country wear on their sleeve. Fairway offers all employees an extra day off each calendar year to use for volunteering.
“It’s important to get out there and help out in the community, and I’m proud to work at a company that goes the extra mile to provide volunteer opportunities and really makes that a priority,” Kroll said. “Not a lot of companies do that, and it’s an important to take advantage of — not only the opportunity to step away from the computer for a day — but the opportunity to serve the community that you’re a part of.”
While Kroll and a team of four others from Fairway were framing walls in a nearby Milwaukee Habitat warehouse, others from the Fairway family and from the Brewers Community Foundation were putting the finishing touches on a home in Milwaukee’s Harambee neighborhood for long-time Milwaukee resident Priscilla and her teenage daughter, Fatou.
“It will be a great source of pride to have my own home and land that I can pass down,” Priscilla told Habitat for Humanity. “It means freedom and autonomy. It means stability for my daughter so that she can focus on school.”
One of the first things Priscilla and Fatou plan to do when they move into their new home? They’re going to plant a garden, because it’s something they have always wanted to do, but have never had the opportunity to do when the family was constantly on the move, from rental to rental.
Providing affordable housing for Milwaukee’s families is job number one at Habitat, a goal that goes hand-in-hand with Fairway’s commitment to making homeownership as affordable as possible to as many people as possible across the country.
“Fairway and Habitat really have a strong connection in terms of our mission — in terms of providing homeownership opportunities,” said Brian Sonderman, executive director of Milwaukee Habitat. “To have Fairway’s support, both through volunteerism and through financial support, it provides another opportunity to serve another Milwaukee family, and we’re grateful for that opportunity.”
Milwaukee is currently enduring an affordable housing crisis that forces one in three renters in the city to spend 50 percent or more of their income on housing. Habitat Milwaukee’s mission is to empower first-time homebuyers like Priscilla to build their own three- or four-bedroom home for an average mortgage payment of just $600-$800 per month.
In 2022, Milwaukee Habitat will build 20 brand new affordable homes in Milwaukee’s Harambee neighborhood and provide affordable critical home repair on 40 homes throughout Milwaukee’s northwest side. Milwaukee Habitat has served nearly 1,500 local families in need of safe, affordable housing since its founding in 1984.
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