RE: Air Conditioning Contractors of America –
The Professional Difference
Dear Website Customer:
"Relationships
of trust depend on our willingness to look not only to our own
interests, but also the interests of others." Peter Farquharson
It is for this very reason that 20 years
ago Kahn Mechanical Contractors affiliated with Air Conditioning
Contractors of America (ACCA), the HVAC industry’s most prominent
trade association. We are proud of our participation at the local,
state and national levels of ACCA. This unique partnership places
us in the position to teach and learn about topics that affect
our business and our customers through direct interaction with
our competitors and industry peers.
The most exciting outreach of our relationship
with ACCA is in the area of community service. Kahn Mechanical
Contractors has always been a contributor to the local community.
Now, through our affiliation with ACCA we are serving the needy
of North Texas with the Air Conditioning Contractors Community
Services Foundation, a newly formed 501c3 non-profit organization.
The mission of this group is improve the living climate conditions
of elderly, disabled and low-income homeowners by providing safe,
energy efficient air conditioning and heating equipment. We do
this through five distinct programs:
- Habitat for Humanity
- Heat the Town
- Beat the Heat
- Short-term Community Projects
- Channel 8 — Santa’s Helpers
This year, Josh Kahn organized the efforts
of the Foundation to provide no cost HVAC systems complete with
installation and warranty to Habitat for Humanity. This
year alone we provided systems to nine residences in the North
Texas area and plan to provide twenty systems in the year 2000,
and thirty systems in the year 2001. This is a tremendously successful
coordination of contractors, manufacturers and Habitat for Humanity
Chapters.
Our Heat the Town program was started
in 1991 in response to the many unnecessary deaths, due to unsafe
heating equipment, in the residences of elderly and disabled homeowners.
Over 150 contractor members of ACCA and more than 50 HVAC vendors
and manufacturers work with the City of Dallas People Helping
People, City of Dallas Housing Department, the Cowtown Brush-Up
Program of the City of Fort Worth Housing Department, the Fort
Worth Police Department, the Council on Aging, and TXU Electric
and Gas.
This massive group of volunteers meet every
fall at the Kahn Mechanical Contractors office in Dallas, and
at Air-Rite Air Conditioning in Fort Worth to kick off the season
and commence repairing and replacing heating equipment all over
North Texas. Since the inception of this program we have provided
new and/or refurbished heaters, floor and central furnaces to
approximately 1,150 homes and agencies. As a part of this program,
volunteers also install smoke detectors, check for high levels
of carbon monoxide, and install carbon monoxide detectors. The
dollar value to the North Texas Communities has exceeded $750,000
in donated parts, equipment and labor.
Beat the Heat
is a new program formed in response to the 38 heat related deaths
in North Texas in 1998. To date we have performed services in
response to calls from our partners mentioned above, and have
plans to escalate our donated services and organizational structure
to the level of the Heat the Town Program.
Our Short-term Community Projects
committee is hard at work on an adopt-an-agency concept that would
place the HVAC needs of needy non-profit agencies in the hands
of our foundation. It will be the truest sense of cooperation
between non-profit groups where we are able to directly impact
overhead reduction for these worthwhile contributors to our community.
The Holidays bring around Troy Dungan from
WFAA Channel 8 and his Santa’s Helpers program.
Every year Troy comes to the November ACCA business meeting to
bring us well wishes, the weather report for the season, and a
hearty thank you for our collection of over 10% of all the toys
collected and distributed each year by Channel 8.
All told, Kahn Mechanical Contractors has
successfully partnered with a group that facilitates our "giving
spirit" where it can best be utilized. Our donations of goods
and services go straight to the point of need with these homeowners
and community agencies without any unnecessary overhead, profit
and red tape.
If you have interest in learning more about
this unique organization please feel free to contact me at 214-631-1010,
or call Patrice Pruitt at the Foundation 800-260-8041.
‘Tis the Season for Giving. Wishing
you and yours happy and peaceful holidays.
Sincerely,
KAHN MECHANICAL CONTRACTORS
Ann R. Kahn
TACL A370C |
