How long has Bath Experts been in business?
Steve Woodward: Our business began operations in August of 2019 with our Indianapolis location. We expanded into Ohio with Cincinnati and Dayton locations in September of 2020, as well as Columbus in October of 2021. Our Ft Wayne location opened in March of 2022. Cleveland will be opening in September.
Jeff Worzala: We’re a 100% locally owned business in each one of our markets, and so we understand the importance of giving back where we can. We’ve tried to partner ourselves or participate in the communities that we live in.
Steve Woodward: Our main area of support is donating to children’s hospitals, both in Ohio and here, in Indy. We also sponsor all sorts of local little leagues and carnivals, fairs, 5Ks, fun runs. We participate in local events almost every single weekend, so just being a part of the community, if that makes sense.
Why do you think it’s important for Bath Experts to support the local community?
Jeff Worzala: We want to build a brand in the local communities that we’re a part of and it’s part of the culture too of having our employees be proud of the organization that they work for. Many times when we’re at different events, we’ll have customers come up to us and talk to us about their experience and how happy they were with their tub or shower project. As a company we love being accountable to those customers and homeowners in our community.
As Steve said, we’re constantly participating in the little town festivals and things like that. It helps us generate leads which is important to us, but it also shows that we are local supporters of these events as well because there’s a cost associated with being there and all that money in most cases goes back to the local community.
Why do you choose to donate to Riley Children’s Foundation and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital?
Jeff Worzala: Specifically the Children’s hospitals support everybody in the community, whether you’ve had a personal experience with them directly or indirectly. They’re well recognized and respected in the community and if we can provide a little bit of support each month, it just makes sense to have a partnership with them.
On a personal side, I do have a son that has been treated at Riley Children’s Hospital. The child life group was critical for us because they’re the team that works with patients while they’re getting treatment and focused on making their time a little bit more enjoyable. That’s the group that we’ve chosen to support here in Indianapolis and Cincinnati.
How often do you donate to these organizations?
Steve Woodward: We donate once a month to the children’s hospitals in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Typically we send the check with a letter to them around halfway through the month. Our team just finished presenting our latest annual donation to Riley earlier this month, totalling $18,650 for the past year.
Jeff Worzala: If you think about how we donate to each one of those organizations, it’s a relatively small amount but it’s on every single project and it’s consistent every single month. And so that really builds over time.
Does Bath Experts have any donation milestones coming up?
Jeff Worzala: We just met with the Riley group in the last few weeks at their facility. We’ve surpassed $31,000 in donations to them lifetime since we started our program. As Steve said, Cincinnati is not quite as developed in terms of our relationship with them and giving back, but we’ve still passed $10,000 in donations to them and that will just continue to grow over time as well. As we establish ourselves in other markets, it’s going to be a similar program that we have in place.
Steve Woodward: Yeah. We’ll have Columbus up and running certainly by the end of the year. We hope to be able to continue to donate significant amounts over time. All of our customers do receive a letter letting them know that we’ve donated $25 to those organizations as a result of their recent purchase with us.
