International Nonprofit Provides Homes and Hope in Mexico

Key Points

• Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s Mexico City office has helped provide new homes for local families in need with TECHO, a Latin American nonprofit focused on housing poverty.
• Funding and employee volunteers from Marathon allowed for constructing homes for three families who had been living in makeshift dwellings in the southern part of the city.
• The project was completed in a single weekend with assistance from the families and TECHO volunteers.

Three families in Mexico City who had been living in crude structures with dirt floors and no running water recently saw their circumstances transformed over a single weekend. TECHO, a Latin American nonprofit, organized construction of new homes for the families with funding via Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s (MPC) Mexico City office, which also provided employee volunteers to help do the work.

“It was an incredibly rewarding experience! Though it left us with sore muscles, we were filled with joy knowing we made a significant impact on three families in desperate need,” MPC Latin America Finance Director Antinea Reyes said. “These families previously lived in makeshift shelters made of discarded materials with no flooring and were exposed to harsh weather conditions. They now have decent homes.”

TECHO assists people in Latin America and the Caribbean who are facing housing challenges because of poverty and natural disasters. The organization provides homes that are made from prefabricated wooden panels, which allows them to be assembled in a short period of time.

The weekend project in Mexico City involved 27 MPC employee volunteers, TECHO volunteers and members of the families who would receive the homes. Their tasks included digging holes for wooden piles that support the floors as well as putting together the walls and rooftops of the houses. Each home was outfitted with a water catchment system that has 290 gallons of storage capacity.

“It was an incredibly rewarding experience! Though it left us with sore muscles, we were filled with joy knowing we made a significant impact on three families in desperate need.”

“It was a gratifying activity that helps us value what we have, from our jobs at MPC to our homes,” said MPC Mexico Government and Public Affairs Director Paulo Esteban Alcaraz. “I am very proud of MPC as a company for contributing to this effort and allowing us to be part of it.”

MPC’s Mexico City office supports the company’s ARCO® retail brand in the country along with additional efforts that involve importing and marketing fuels more broadly. The office’s finance department organized and led MPC’s volunteer effort, which marked the first time that employees from the Mexico City office have assisted TECHO.

“We look forward to carrying on this community involvement in the future and having even more employees become part of this,” Alcaraz said. “The integration with the rest of the team is very valuable. Getting to know colleagues even better really helps further connect us as one team.”