Frontier Promotions : Promoting Philanthropy
Story by Sara Teller
Photo by David McNair
Frontier Promotions is an up-and-coming full service sales and marketing firm that established in downtown Ferndale in June 2014. The company works with Fortune 100 and 500 companies, and was named one of the Detroit Free Press’ Top Work Places in 2015 as well as one of 2015’s Best Businesses of Ferndale.
“We love that our office is located in a progressive city like Ferndale, and the community and environment is one of the main reasons that we initially decided to look for offices spaces here,” explains Frontier’s Human Resources Manager, Sarah McCarty. The company thrives in a highly team oriented atmosphere.” She says Frontier prides itself on its fun, interconnect-ed culture. “We focus on creating a positive environment. We empower our team members to take a hands on approach in their professional responsibilities and are constantly improving the morale of the entire crew. We have a very ‘work-hard, play-hard’ style of doing business.”
Frontier Promotions is also focused on giving back to the community, and hosts many charity events throughout the year. “We make it a priority to be involved with the community and philanthropic work,” Sarah explains. “We have provided community meals and Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless. We also have a tradition of adopting a family for Christmas to make sure that we are taking care of our local community and giving back.”
The team particularly enjoys working with Ferndale’s First United Methodist Church, located at 22331 Woodward Ave, at 9 Mile Rd. “We have done some volunteer work with First United Methodist Church and particularly like helping them because they have been so kind and welcoming to us since first moving into our Woodward location. Our office space is directly across from First United Methodist, and when we first moved into our space we struggled with parking since the lot here is shared by multiple businesses.” The church immediately stepped in to help. “Initially, we became involved with the church when they offered to let us use their parking lot. In exchange we did some volunteer work, including a Thanksgiving dinner.”
For the Thanksgiving event, Frontier Promotions had five of its team members take the day to prepare, cook, and serve a Thanksgiving meal at the church. “We prepared all of your traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, rolls, etc. And, were able to service over 100 members of the local community that did not have the means to buy or cook their own dinner,” Sarah says. “It was really rewarding to see the appreciation of everyone involved, from the church staff, to the recipients of the dinner. Everyone came together, and for us it really made us feel thankful to be part of the Ferndale community.”
Frontier Promotions hosts a number of activities usually around the latter portion of the year and during the holidays, including providing a family with gifts during the Christmas season. “That is sort of a tradition for us now,” Sarah says, adding that “We pride ourselves on our work environment and office culture, so every Thursday we do some sort of team-building exercise.” Last year in December, Frontier also decided to attend the Be-a-Kid-for-a-Kid event at Dino’s Lounge. Proceeds from the event went to Blessings in Backpack, which Sarah says is “a really great organization that provides low-income students with meals for the weekend that they otherwise would not have.” The Frontier team has also planned local food drives, with the latest also held at the end of 2016.
