Sea Breeze Financial Posts Meaningful Returns Against Cancer
By Matthew Royse
MBA News Link 
July 3, 2003

Sea Breeze Financial Services, Inc., Anaheim, Calif., has created its own nonprofit called “Miracles for Kids” to help families beat an increasing disease in children and, by some studies, a child’s greatest fear – cancer.

The groundwork for the foundation started about four years ago when Len Hamilton and Curtis Green, both partners at Sea Breeze, decided they wanted to give back to the community in a more philanthropic enterprise. So they came up with an idea to join forces with the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) and establish a “Breeze Fund.” Borrowers would check a box and Sea Breeze would automatically deduct the amount ($25, $50 or $75) from the refinance proceeds and put it into the fund to help kids with cancer.

Sea Breeze’s 150 employees then started to get into the act and automatically deducted their contribution from their paychecks or commission checks every month, in part because they knew Sea Breeze would match 25 percent of every donation.

The numbers started to rise each year, from $12,500 after its inception to $50,000 the next year. After raising more than $80,000 for children with cancer last year, Sea Breeze has decided to do more with PCRF in 2003.

Hamilton and Green recently filed with the Internal Revenue Service to create a new nonprofit foundation called “Miracles for Kids.” “Last year, (Sea Breeze) decided that in order to take it to the next level we needed to reach out to the mortgage community and rally other mortgage companies to join the cause,” said Curtis Green. “I believe that by showing other mortgage companies what we do and how we do it, we can form one of the largest nonprofit foundations in the country.”

This year so far, the foundation has raised $100,000 to PCRF and a number of employees at Sea Breeze are now in the automatic donation program.

At the same time, Green continues to organize contests and parties to contribute to the fund on top of an annual silent and live auction.

“We currently have about 80 percent of our people in the program and climbing,” Green said. “It has been great for morale and an excellent way for our company to increase our involvement in the community.”