A Boston-area flooring business puts people first.
By Lannan O’Brien | Above photo by Kerry Brett
Chris Zizza has a phrase engraved on the inside of his wallet: “Help ever, hurt never.” Each time he opens his billfold, he’s reminded of the motto he chooses to live by.
But while many people set lofty goals they intend to attain tomorrow, next week, or next year, Zizza, who is President of C&R Flooring in Westwood, Massachusetts, has placed giving and helping others at the forefront of his daily life.
When 2011’s Hurricane Irene hit Wilmington, Vermont, for example, Zizza’s Friends of the Valley Foundation rebuilt the local businesses impacted by the storm. Two years later, Marian High School in Framingham fell short of funding for two new school buses, and C & R covered the cost of a five-year lease for the second bus. That’s in addition to refinishing the gym floors for the school on an annual basis and installing new floors as needed.
These are just a few of the countless stories involving C&R’s charitable work, and Zizza and his team have earned a reputation for their kindness and generosity.
“I’ve found in over 37 years of doing charitable work that people just hire us because they know I put a good portion of the money back into the community,” he says. “And what’s a better way to live your life than that?”
An adopted child, Zizza was often told by his parents, “Never forget that we chose you,” to remind him of how much he was wanted. Every Christmas Eve, his family brought gifts to The Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, which serves abused, neglected, and at-risk children. “It just instilled in me how amazing it is to help others because I could have been an orphan, but I wasn’t. A wonderful family raised me,” he says.
The day after he opened C&R Flooring in 1986, the 19-year-old Zizza rang the doorbell at Catholic Charities Boston–the organization through which he was adopted—and asked how he could help. He’s been involved ever since, serving on the board for most of that time beside business owners he describes as mentors and “titans of industry.”
Zizza has a personal interest in causes that benefit children, veterans, first responders, and teachers. In addition to Catholic Charities, he serves on numerous boards and dedicates his time to organizations like the Little Bit Foundation, which serves students in underresourced school communities, and the Gary Sinise and Travis Mills Foundations, which help veterans and their families. If his employees mention a cause they care about, the company finds a way to support it.
C&R Flooring frequently installs flooring for disabled veterans in need of adaptive flooring solutions. Once, Zizza sanded the function hall for free at the American Legion in Dover, Massachusetts, and the organization had a thank-you ad printed in the local newspaper. Not long after, he arrived at a client’s home in Needham to do an estimate, and the homeowner expressed appreciation for his work at the Legion.
“Often times, what you’re doing out there in the world does resonate with a client. You might not know why they’re hiring you, but they do. And that’s just how we’ve always done it,” Zizza says.
There was a time when Zizza’s father would pull him aside and say, “You really need to dial down this charitable giving,’” he recalls, laughing. “He’d say, ‘You’re young, you’ve got to take care of your family and yourself.’” But, fortunately for communities across New England, he didn’t listen.
