Tina Marie Molinar, owner of BYM Cleaning Company, understands struggle, and through her home, construction and office cleaning service, she’s made it her mission to help other women get back on their feet from devastating personal situations.
A Chicago native raised in a loving, hardworking family, Tina Marie had a successful career when she moved to Texas with her husband and three children. She never imagined that she would one day be living with no electricity or water, no means of support, a car in repossession and the emotional scars of a domestic violence relationship that she’d kept hidden for a painfully long time. She was saved from homelessness by a Richland Hills church friend, who engaged Tina Marie in a conversation that changed her life.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline says that over one in three women (35.6%) has experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime. Abuse doesn’t have to be physical – it can be emotional or psychological, and there’s often reluctance to speak out about what’s happening behind closed doors. While Tina Marie felt broken, with seemingly no options for rebuilding her life, the church stepped in with healing resources. During church camp, she received a message from a friend asking if she knew of a housecleaning company. She responded without hesitation, and this is how her cleaning service began.
BYM stands for “Bless Your Mess” Cleaning Company, recognizing that many women have situations in their lives that need a blessing, Tina Marie says.
“Many of the women I met through church were going through their own struggles. Some were battling cancer or addiction, caring for special needs children or working their way through other challenges,” she notes.
“It became clear that I wanted my cleaning company to partner with women’s shelters and help other women rebuild their lives, just as I was rebuilding mine,” she says.
With no money for childcare, Tina Marie found that cleaning houses gave her the flexibility, with permission from the homeowners, to bring her daughter along. At ages 6 and 7, young Sofia was helping her mom and learning the value of work and persistence. On her first cleaning job, preparing a home for a move-out, Tina Marie made $480 and felt like she was rich. Her first stop was Aldi, where she bought bacon and milk.
As more work came in, Tina Marie began employing women she knew from food bank lines and church assistance centers, women who also needed a chance to get back on their feet. She partnered with different shelters, offering gas money or Uber fares to help these women get started, and provided the cleaning supplies. Along the way, she also employed teachers who were seeking extra money between school seasons, and connected with moms trying to keep up with the bills while caring for a husband or other family member with a debilitating illness. Helping these women in their lives gave Tina Marie the encouragement to keep going with hers.
Since Tina Marie had studied psychology and business in college and had previous professional experience working in the mental health field, she leveraged her healthcare connections for jobs cleaning hospitals and medical office buildings at night.
Her business grew rapidly. In the first year, BYM went from cleaning one home to over 100. Calls doubled by the second year. Expansion into commercial cleaning came in the third year, for places like Walmart, Target, the Dallas Stars, Texas Health Resources, Lifetime Fitness and others. BYM opened in 2016, and while the COVID pandemic could have really shut things down, the number of offices and gyms calling for COVID cleans was amazing.
BYM is based in Grapevine and serves the DFW Metroplex, Austin, San Antonio, Houston and other Texas cities (BYMcleaningco.com, phone 817-312-6914).
Tina Marie has big goals for the future and hopes to share her story more widely, to let women know that no matter what the circumstances, there is help out there and “a way to rise.”
“I dedicate my company, and all my hard work, to my daughter Sofia Marie and the women of this community,” she says. “I hope to inspire people, knowing that I made it to other side and they can too.”
"BYM stands for 'Bless Your Mess' Cleaning Company, recognizing that many women have situations in their lives that need a blessing," Tina Marie says.