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Building a Healthier Future for Fort Worth
Some people think empathy is innate, like intelligence or hair color. Others say it can be learned through personal experience, trauma, or an awakening of the soul through divine grace. Either way, most people agree that empathy is key to building healthy families, communities, and cities.
We all need a little help sometimes. Luckily, The Morris Foundation is here — a quiet, hometown hero located off West 7th Street dedicated to helping the people of Fort Worth live better, healthier lives.
It’s the 1940s. A Fort Worth trailblazer named Jack Morris was trying to start a carpet business. But success in business (and life) isn’t always easy. Morris failed and started over again and again. In the end, with a lot of grit, he created approximately 90 patents for products that were as soft as his heart: the signature foam padding used beneath carpets, bus benches, beds, car seats, and similar items.
In the process of engineering the polyurethane padding that revolutionized the carpet business, Morris became extremely wealthy but never lost the empathy he gained from surviving a tough childhood. While some people turn away from suffering, Morris turned toward it, dedicating his fortune to Fort Worth’s most vulnerable populations: the people experiencing homelessness; the people who never got the opportunity to learn how to read; the children who didn’t grow up in nurturing homes or have the gift of higher education; and the families suffering from the effects of mental illness.
Courtesy of the Morris Foundation
To date, the Morris Foundation has given over $100 million to nonprofits in the Fort Worth community, helping over two million people create better lives for themselves by partnering with nonprofits and universities like The Women’s Center of Tarrant County, Tarrant Area Food Bank, Fortress Youth Development, and North Texas Area Community Health Centers. In 2022, the foundation awarded nearly $12 million to these organizations and more, strengthening its vision of supporting the city’s leaders in education, healthcare, and social services.
Morris was gifted with the ability to see the pain of others and their potential, all without judgment. The foundation has operated under that same mentality of compassion, responsibility, innovation, and perseverance since its inception in 1986.
Jack Morris died in 2004, and his wife, Linda, passed in 2018; they ran the foundation together, and then Linda continued the work after her husband died at 84. Now, two of their children, Laura Liles and Michelle Piotrowski, sit on the board and oversee much of the work their parents started. “At the heart of how we lead the Foundation are our parents’ values and their vision that The Morris Foundation can play a role in creating paths to prosperity for all who call Fort Worth home.”
“Jack really started the foundation with the vision that he was giving back to the city that he lived in and loved,” said Elizabeth Brands, President and CEO of The Morris Foundation. “He felt fortunate that this city gave him the opportunity to start small and grow a legacy of wealth.”
Courtesy of the Morris Foundation
That legacy and philanthropic opportunity was passed down to Laura and Michelle. The women work hard to ensure their parents’ vision is carried out in the nearly 100 different projects the foundation supports each year.
In the country’s 11th-largest city, poverty and social inequality run deep, but luckily, so does its philanthropy. Morris has four primary pillars it supports to strengthen the city from the inside out: housing solutions, mental health, maternal health, and public education. This women- and children-focused approach to philanthropy is something the Morris daughters believe will change the framework of education and healthcare in the city.
“All these systems work together,” said Brands. Kids without good housing conditions may not have good mental health, she explains, and women without good healthcare might lack strong maternal health.
These four pillars are like the foundation of a house: without a strong structure, the rest of the house won’t stand the test of time or survive the evitable hailstorms of life.
Brands believes the nonprofits they support provide the true structural foundation for the city. And it’s those nonprofits, she says, that will create the lasting change the Morris family wants to see in the city they love so dearly.
“We help nonprofits swing for the fences in how they tackle the challenges that Fort Worth faces,” said Brands. And with the right resources, she knows the city’s nonprofits can find the right solutions to create lasting change and a better quality of life for generations to come.
