JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
Window World Of Detroit, Helping Veterans
All right, welcome back in this wonderful spot here in LaPier at Freedom Lake with People of Impact as they help to serve our veteran community. And boy, you hear it all the time, but it takes a village, and it really does. Because you have to have that symbiotic relationship between people that are willing to undergo this and make sure that people are being served. And then you got to make sure that you've got businesses that are on board. And I'm just so grateful and thankful that Windoworld Detroit is one of those companies that's stepping up, Halim Sheena, the owner here, it's great to see you. Great to see you also. Thank you. Thank you. You've got just a glow about it. Thanks for doing this. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Niall here as well, Niall Sheena. Hello. Hey. How's it going? Good to see you. And Ms. Mary. Mary Sheena. Yeah. These cookies are ridiculous. I don't know what's in them. I'm afraid to ask. Special stuff. Special stuff. Wait about 45 minutes. Yeah, right. Yeah. Callin' Uber to take you home, yeah. Oh, yeah. 69. Oh, stop. It's not funny. Grandma's recipe. Yeah. Well, it's great to see you guys out here. And obviously, there is a strong connection with Windoworld and helping veterans. And you guys have continued holding that mantle. Big time. Yeah. So, Windoworld nationally, we have obviously, as you know, launched many programs to help with outreach in the veteran community, in the military community. Specifically, you know, our focuses are on careers for veterans if we can help in any sort of way. Community outreach, which obviously we're doing here today, and any partnerships that we can find with organizations that are like-minded. Yeah. And Helene, when you get that call from Chuck and Ken, when they say like, "Look, you got to come out here and check this thing out." And when you came out here and looked at this thing, what was your first impression when you got out here to this property? Well, first came out here and I see all these buildings, and we met Laura, and she told us what her mission was. And it's like, I wanted to help. They need windows. I mean, she's helping veterans. You could feel the draft. I mean, when we were here that one time there was bugs and flies coming through the windows, so you just decided I'm going to replace all the windows on Windoworld. We're going to take care of the whole thing. And why is that such an important piece of your DNA? Well, I mean, we want to help. The veterans kind of get- they're not treated as well as they should be treated when they come back, okay? And it breaks my heart to see them middle of the street, you know, begging or all of that. And she's doing a great thing here. She's helping out, and we just want to help. We could help, and we just want to help. So you met Laura and you said, all right, we'll take care of the windows. And so when it comes to these types of ventures, when it comes to making this type of impact, is it an easy? Yes. I mean, you guys are a business. You still got to operate. You still got to run, and this is still money that we're talking about here, but it feels like based on what I've heard from you, what I've heard from Laura, what I've heard from her, it's a pretty clear answer. Yeah. It was a quick yes for him, yeah, he's more of a yes on the spot type of guy. I got it. And then Mary and Mom over here to make sure everything is good on the back end. Yes, but I was with him when we came out here for the first time, and just meeting Laura and her spark and her genuine, she's got a beautiful soul, and he just talked to her for 10 minutes, and you realize that this is her passion and hands down her mission, she's going to make it happen. I'm that impositive, she's an amazing person. And anything we can do to help her, we're thrilled that we can help her. And it's just a really great place. I would genuinely tell anyone listening to come out and check it out, it's a great, great thing. There's window world, there's 230 locations nationally, and you hear stories of, if not all of them, most of them, doing stuff like this for veterans, you know, like my partner, I have a partner that owns six stores. He's remodeled six, seven homes, like from the ground up for veterans, windows roof, all that. And it's just, it's in our DNA, window world's DNA, just to take care of veterans. Well, and you being a family company, I have to imagine that that place into this, too. Big time. I mean, you see, it's not just the veterans you're helping, it's their families, too. So you need to be able to kind of help them as much as you can to get them on the right path for success later down the line. Yeah, certainly. And so now, how has business been for you guys? It's picked up a lot in the last week, I got to be honest with you. I mean, we've been given a lot of quotes and since Wednesday until right now, it's been booming, actually. Well, and I think, too, I mean, anytime you're in that type of atmosphere, like an election atmosphere, there's a lot of people that just kind of pull back, "Oh, I got to just see how this thing works out, or how it plays out," and it may not have anything to do with politics at all, but it's just an area of uncertainty for a lot of people. But when it comes to making sure that your home is properly taken care of, sometimes that's not an option for people. And one thing that I think is important about what you guys do is that there is no funny business here, right? You go out, you look at people's houses, they'll call you for something, and you go do that inspection and you make sure what the problems are, what the problems aren't, and you're very forthcoming with your clients and your customers. And I think that it's a separator from what you guys do in a lot of other companies. Yes. We're honest, we're going to come out there, we're going to give you an honest assessment, we're going to give you a price, a low price right from the beginning, we're not going to play games, we're not going to start high play games. We don't charge, you know, because of what zip code you have, we're just honest company, you know. Yeah, and I think that shows by the people that you employ, people that you hire, right? It's Veterans Day. So, you know, making sure that veterans have jobs, if they're in that world, that Winter World's going to be there to make sure that they have an income to bring home to their family, to make sure that they're taking care of their families when they get back from duty. Absolutely. Yeah, our install manager actually, I think he's on his way out here, he's a veteran. And any time when a star comes in looking for a job or a salesperson, we've had many over the years that we're veterans. And we take, I mean, a special notice to that, you know, that's a hard working individual and maybe other people won't see that as a resume point, but we absolutely do, you know. Yeah, certainly. And so now, as you get into this busy time, hopefully, if somebody comes to you now, like I tell people all the time when I'm talking about you guys, yeah, it's cold today. It's windy today. It ain't snowing yet and, you know, you still, if you need to make whatever change to your house is necessary, that there isn't really a timeframe here, right? But once you start getting into the colder months, it's going to be more impactful. You start to feel a little more and I think that's something that people need to be aware of. It's like, you don't want to push too far down the road, but you've got to make those changes if you see those problems arise. Yes. We do install all year long, right? Right. We're open 12 months a year. We install all year long. In fact, it wouldn't be super intuitive, but believe it or not, we're a little busier in these months right now leading up because because people start to go, oh man, there's a little bit of a draft. I got a draft. Go with it. Shoot. Who was I supposed to call it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What have done before Thanksgiving or Christmas? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, big holidays, families coming over, things like that. Yeah, certainly. There was a lot of rise, and then we got coming up. A lot of work. Yeah. I mean, like my father was saying, a lot of people have been calling in, and I mean, they know, you know, with vinyl, there's still a good chance we can get it in this year. Okay. We'll do those. It's more than likely beginning next year, but frankly, I mean, with some of the mild December's of January's we've been having, it's still a great time to install because you can prepare for those colder months, you know, those late January through February and March. And you know, I mean, doing things like this is a lot easier when we have people out there who are, you know, choosing when to work for their homes. Certainly. So a nice bump in the season will help us be able to tackle this project and hopefully more. Yeah. Alim, Mary, Niall. Thank you guys so much. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your support of veterans and what you guys continue to do for veterans and obviously your customer base. It's wonderful. Thank you very much. We appreciate you guys. All right. We'll take a break. Coming up on the other side, we'll continue to talk about the good folks here at Freedom Like with people of impact as we continue on WJER. [BLANK_AUDIO]
November 11, 2024 ~ Chris speaks with Window World of Detroit Owner, Halim Sheena about how Window World is helping veterans on Veteran's Day and beyond.