New Funder Spotlight: Thomas W. Briggs Foundation
In an age before Google, the Welcome Wagon must have been an encouraging sight. For those who have heard of the "Welcome Wagon," the work of the company behind new United Housing funder, the Thomas W. Briggs Foundation, might already be familiar. Started in Memphis in 1928, Welcome Wagon International began simply as The Welcome Wagon Company. By its peak the company provided "more than one million home visits per year welcoming new families to their communities and visiting others during special occasions" and hostesses gave new families baskets containing information about the community to which they had just moved, retail coupons and suggested civic organizations to join (The Thomas W. Briggs Foundation).
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Welcome Wagon International was the company of Briggs; it had a national US presence, then later moved to Canada. The Thomas W. Briggs Foundation was founded in 1957 and funded in 1964 using proceeds from Briggs' trust. Today, the organization has a mission to "support[s] Memphis-area arts, civic, education, social service and youth organizations" (The Thomas W. Briggs Foundation).
UHI is honored to be the foundation's latest grantee in the focus area of Social Services, and we welcome and thank The Thomas W. Briggs Foundation for their generous investment of $5000 in Homebuyer Education and Financial Counseling (HBE). This money will sustain the HBE program, enabling UHI to continue to serve an average of 900 families a year through one-on-one financial counseling and free Homebuyer Education workshops. Stay tuned for more on HBE, or go here to learn more now.
For more on The Thomas W. Briggs Foundation, visit their website here.
