The Rotary Club of Sedona presented local philanthropists Basil and Mimi Maher with the club’s Make-A-Difference Award and Paul Harris Fellow recognition awards during its Sept. 10 meeting. 

Rotary also donated $1,000 to the Sedona Red Rock High School’s Scorpion Booster Club and $2,000 to Rotary International in the Mahers’ names. 

“Mimi and I are basically very private citizens, but we feel strongly enough about Sedona that we have been willing to become public, and we do that because we really like Sedona,” Basil Maher said. “Some people have said ‘Sedona either embraces you or chews you up to spit you out.’” 

The Mahers both spent their lives in New Jersey before relocating to Sedona in 2020. Basil Maher said he considers Sedona to be his home now, and Mimi Maher founded BCT Sedona Multifamily LLC in the spring of 2022, a company attempting to create workforce housing for first responders, teachers and medical staff. 

The Maher’s major source of wealth stems from the families July 2007 sale of Maher Terminals a container terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey to Deutsche Bank’s RREEF Infrastructure in a $2.3 billion deal. 

“Currently BCT has a multifamily building on Jordan Road and another on Van Deren Road that each have eight units, with an additional 20 single-family homes,” Mimi Maher said. “BCT Sedona started originally, not as a company. It started with trying to find housing for our people who work for us here. So we looked for homes nearby that they could rent.” The name BCT originally stood for Bobcat Trail during a document filing, and Mimi Maher said the name “kind of stuck.” 

The company’s motto, “Bringing Change to Sedona,” grew out of that coincidence. One of the couple’s previous tenants was Sedona-Oak Creek School District Superintendent Tom Swaninger, whose initial housing plans fell through when he was relocating to Sedona. 

“I [was] in a little bit of a panic, and found out through some other people that the Mahers have different properties that they rent to different working families in Sedona, and they had one open,” Swaninger said. “A wonderful two-bedroom apartment, and keep in mind … I am a superintendent of the district, and have the highest salary of anybody within our district, and it was still kind of a stretch — but [the Mahers] allowed for this to happen.” 

“This seems like a small thing, but without that, I don’t know if it would have been possible,” Swaninger said. ”And this is just one story, and I want you to know that there are teachers, law enforcement and counselors. We have numerous people that I’m not even aware of that are able to access housing in this community and be a part of this community and without the people, people like the Mahers who, through their generosity and through their business sense, make this possible, and that’s just part of what they’ve done.” 

“BCT, I have to explain, is Mimi,” Basil Maher said. “Mimi created it, Mimi runs it, it’s Mimi’s vision, and everything that [Swaninger] was talking about, as far as the housing that’s supplied by ‘the Mahers,’ it’s really supplied by Mimi.” 

“We talk about the housing, but the Mahers really were the ones who started the whole extended day program,” Rotary Youth Services Chairwoman Jennette Bill said. “They were sitting down in the committee talking about, this is something they wanted to get going, and then gave the initial funding for it.” 

Last year, Rotary donated $5,000 to the district’s Wildcat Extended Day Program that was matched by Health First Foundation of Northern Arizona, in addition to the funding provided by the Mahers. 

The Mahers will also be providing funds to allow West Sedona School’s preschool program to break even after the district board in July approved charging $450 per month, or $250 for low-income families, for preschool in the hope of expanding the program from 20 to 40 kids. 

“Beginning this next quarter, we’re able to offer [preschool] to 40 families,” Swaninger said. “These are 40 families that may not have ever had access to early childhood education. When we talk about changing lives, this is not it’s potentially not just changing lives, it’s potentially changing generations. That these kids are finding success in school and in life, who then would be able to multiply that? That we’re not dealing in addition to subtraction because of the Mahers we’re dealing in multiplication. Multiplication, infinite over time, doing good for not only what is immediately impacting this community, but impacting communities and families for generations to come.” 

“One of the other things that we have thought of, and we’re not sure exactly how to go about it yet, but the school has an endowment fund. It was used previously as scholarships. And scholarships are important, but the school needs funding for itself,” Basil Maher said. 

The proposed fund could support teacher salaries, staff housing grants, additional programs and capital improvements. He estimated that SOCSD needs an extra $1 million annually, which could be achieved by investing $20 million in an endowment which provides 5% interest. 

Another Maher project was a proposal to convert Building C on the district’s Big Park Community School property to teacher housing, which was halted while SOCSD considered selling it to Yavapai County, a concept sponsored by recently-defeated Yavapai County Supervisor Donna Michaels that went nowhere due lack of interest from the rest of the county supervisors. 

The district will be seeking voter authorization to sell the property to a private party during the election on Tuesday, Nov. 5. No buyer has come forward, but the vote would permit the sale if one emerged. 

“If the school district does get the approval to sell to a third party, we would be an interested party,” Basil Maher said, although he did not specify what the Mahers’ plans for the property might be. 

The SOCSD Governing Board will hold a special meeting on Monday, Sept. 23, at 5 p.m. in the auditorium at BPCS to answer resident questions and take comments on the proposed sale option.