Wally Mayton

For nearly four decades, Midland has been home to Wally Mayton and his wife, Lindsay, a place where service, faith, and community have continually offered new room to grow. After years of ministry in cities across the country, it was not the scenery that convinced Wally to come here. It was the people.

“When I first visited Midland, it was the middle of January. Gray. Dark. Cold. They showed me the lights of the Dow plant, but what stayed with me was the people. I thought I could be with these people. That mattered more than the setting.”

That conviction, that community is built through relationships, became the thread connecting Wally’s ministry at Memorial Presbyterian Church with his long-standing involvement in the Midland Area Cultural Awareness Coalition. Through the Coalition’s work to nurture understanding, belonging, and shared responsibility across cultures and experiences, Wally found a natural extension of what he believed neighboring could be at its best: intentional, inclusive, and rooted in care for one another.

Influenced by a father whose authenticity drew people close and by his own instinct to see across differences, Wally came to believe that community begins with a simple truth. People must choose to see one another as neighbors, not labels.

That belief helped spark what Midland now knows as Neighboring Week, a signature expression of the Cultural Awareness Coalition’s commitment to inclusion and connection.

The idea first arrived through a conversation sparked by travel and curiosity. A visiting Midlander experienced the concept of intentional neighboring in another church community and brought it home, where local leaders, clergy, and congregations gathered to imagine what it could look like here. Wally joined those early conversations in 2011, helping bring together Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders to shape a shared, flexible vision rooted in service, kindness, and connection.

What followed was simple but powerful. Congregations created block parties, service projects, food ministries, and neighborhood outreach. Volunteers distributed magnets inspired by ‘The Art of Neighboring’, tangible reminders that caring for the person next door is both ordinary and sacred. What began in faith communities continued to grow, eventually embraced and expanded through the Midland Area Cultural Awareness Coalition, where partnerships across agencies and neighborhoods strengthened the movement’s reach and relevance.

For Wally, Neighboring Week has always pointed to something deeper than a single event.

“In Midland, we genuinely care about each other. That sense of neighboring is a core part of who we are. Young people can carry that practice wherever they go.”

Now entering retirement, Wally reflects less on accomplishments and more on relationships formed, paths mentored, and the quiet hope that others will continue the work. Four of his five children live outside Michigan, yet Midland remains the place they call home in their hearts, a testament to the belonging their parents sought when they first arrived.

As Neighboring Week returns each year under the leadership and vision of the Midland Area Cultural Awareness Coalition, inviting residents to extend kindness, build friendships, and strengthen community, Wally’s hope is steady and simple: that Midland never loses the spirit that makes strangers into neighbors and neighbors into lifelong companions.

Because in the end, the strength of a community is not measured by buildings or programs, but by the everyday choice to care for one another.

To learn more about Wally, watch his entire episode of the Max Loves Midland Show: https://bit.ly/3ZGO8r6.