One of Texas’ largest oil and natural gas producers is celebrating its 25th anniversary by distributing dozens of employee-built children’s playhouses to numerous destinations throughout the Midland area, where the company’s operations are based.
Pioneer Natural Resources is donating 25 of the playhouses to dozens of nonprofits, schools, libraries and museums. Some destinations include the West Texas Food Bank, Midland Public Library, the Bynum School and the Museum of the Southwest, among others.
The company, headquartered in Dallas, is donating 10 additional playhouses to the north Texas-based Irving Family Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that provides free counseling and education services for victims of crime, domestic violence, and families with high-risk juveniles.
For weeks, teams of Pioneer employees donated their time and talent to design, paint and assemble the playhouses, with each featuring its own look and style. The Museum of the Southwest, for example, requested an outer space theme because its playhouse will go inside an onsite planetarium, a news release said.
For Pioneer lead maintenance technician Brent Shuler, working on his team’s playhouse — a colorful structure destined for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Permian Basin — was one way to thank Pioneer for taking care of him after a cancer diagnosis last year. He said the company’s involvement in charitable projects like this demonstrates that Pioneer is “a family, not a workplace,” the release said.
To mark both its 25th anniversary milestone and Permian Basin Gives Day, Pioneer presented two of the playhouses on Tuesday to the West Texas Food Bank, which has forged an enduring partnership with the company.
Since its founding in 1997, Pioneer has established itself as a state and regional leader in oil and gas exploration, industry innovation and production. Throughout its growth in Texas as a large independent energy company, among its enduring missions has been a deep devotion to community philanthropy and volunteerism.
One playhouse recipient is the Sibley Nature Center, a 49-acre preserve in Midland’s Hogan Park that celebrates the region’s natural history by offering a broad range of educational programs to visitors. The center’s playhouse will be placed in an educational garden and serve as an extension of its gardening program.
Distributing most of the project’s 35 playhouses in the Midland area again demonstrates Pioneer’s corporate giving focus as a 100% Permian Basin company.
The company closed out 2021 by donating 35 acres of land in November to Midland Habitat for Humanity valued at around $2 million and followed less than a month later with a pledge of $2.5 million toward a partnership aimed at redeveloping 120 acres of Hogan Park.
