Servolution: Azle nonprofit helps North Texans in need

From the left: Jason Malewiski, Servolution Network Executive Director in Azle; Volunteer James Dority; Good Neighbors Project Manager Bruce Adams; Executive Assistant Cassie Long; and Junk King owner George Berry. (Photo by Stephen Montoya)

What started out as one man’s quest to find resources to aid someone in need has blossomed into an eight-year tradition of helping the less fortunate in North Texas.

The Servolution Network Azle branch just finished hosting its eighth annual neighborhood blitz, which helped revitalize 15 homes in several area communities.

Jason Malewiski, Servolution Network Executive Director in Azle, said all the homes that were worked on during this blitz belonged to a veteran, a widow, someone with a disability, or an economically disadvantaged family or individual.

The blitz is a biannual event that has occurred every April and October for eight years. However, the work is year-round for Malewiski and his team of volunteers.

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Among the projects Malewiski and his team tackled this year were yard cleanup and building a wheelchair ramp for an elderly man who could not get in and out of his home safely.

“One ask can create a string of resources for people in need,” Malewiski said. “Sometimes within an hour of me posting a request for supplies on social media, I have the very resource or resources I asked for.”

Malewiski’s involvement began eight years ago, when he was part of a pilot program headed by a nonprofit agency called 6 Stones, which mentored him along with several other volunteers.

“This agency said Azle was too far out for them to render aid, so they mentored a few of us on how they would select and provide resources to the less fortunate,” he said.

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Malewiski wanted to head a Servolution Network, he said, because of his experience with the organization at a church he attended in Oklahoma City.

The Servolution Network is a non-denominational global nonprofit outreach program with hundreds of locations that build alliances among churches, businesses, governments and others to provide solutions to meet the needs of the community, according to the organization’s website.

The name Servolution, the site explains, comes from the idea of the revolution of serving others.

“One day I wore one of their T-shirts to church when my pastor asked me what it stood for,” Malewiski said. “That question sparked a conversation and the next thing you know we started hosting Wednesday night dinners for people in need.”

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Now, Malewiski’s team consists of a database of nearly 400 volunteers that includes local business owners and contractors who can help restore entire homes and clean large properties.

One such volunteer is George Berry, owner of Junk King, a waste removal company in the Fort Worth-Dallas area.

“Jason asked us for some dumpsters one day, for a project he was working on, and I just steadily stayed in the loop from there,” Berry said.

Since then, Berry has helped find and donate resources to the Servolution Network Azle Branch for the last four years.

“It just feels good to help,” he said. “It is indescribable, the feeling I get when I can help a person in need.”

In 2021 alone, Malewiski said, the SNAB had over 1,100 volunteers who worked more than 13,000 hours, which comes out to just over $350,000 in work costs.

To date, the SNAB has helped revitalize 155 homes since 2014, 19 of which were done in 2021 in a five-day period.

But the stats don’t end there. In 2021, the nonprofit rendered aid to just under 2,500 people, 543 of whom received new furniture or appliances. Another 1,900 people were helped with clothing via the organization’s clothing section called the Fig Leaf Boutique.

For those in need of assistance, there is an application process in place on the Servolution Network’s website called the Good Neighbors Program.

“We used to go to a place because of word of mouth or an alert on social media, but now we ask that everyone apply online for resources,” he said.

Most of the cases, he said, are on a first come, first served basis, unless the need is an emergency.

“The responses we get from the people we help are of humble gratefulness,” Malewiski said. “And the feeling we get for helping is way better than any other feeling in the world.”