We went to Georgia to give the gift of a new home, we returned as the bigger beneficiaries.  What we got from the experience far exceeds what we gave. 

 

As you may know, we recently built a home in Pine Mountain Valley, Georgia for Jeremy Williams and his family as part of an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition episode that is airing on ABC on May 16^th @ 8:00 PM EST.  I’m sure you are familiar with the show but in a nutshell, each episode features the building or renovation of a house for a family that is facing a hardship. The families are chosen by ABC from thousands of applications. The location is kept secret until the day work is set to begin and the family learns of its good fortune. Those of us who have been part of this project all agree, we are actually the ones who received the good fortune, the gift of meeting and getting to know the family we were so fortunate to be paired with.  We went to Georgia to give the gift of a new home, we returned as the bigger beneficiaries.  What we got from the experience far exceeds what we gave. 

For more on the family, click Meet The Family in the e-Update Menu to the right.

 

One of the "corporate" lessons we learned from this experience is that we have a huge opportunity to leverage all the exposure this project brings.  But not to sell more houses.   Yes, we all make our living selling houses and we are already seeing some benefits but the real opportunity we face is to help others with needs similar to the Williams family and to solicit help from as many as are willing to extend the help as broadly as possible.

 

We are real committed to making the most of the opportunity of being the featured builder on EMHE and we are tapping every possible resource and leveraging every connection to make sure everyone sees the episode because then we want to go further and mount a campaign to help find a cure for ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). 

 

So we put together a video.  I'm not sure if it's a music video with a message or a message set to music but I know this, it's a powerfully moving video about the Williams family, most specifically about Jeremy and his battle with Lou Gehrig's disease.  Or more accurately, a video about a man who lives life to the fullest despite the daily challenges and asks the same of others around him who face much smaller challenges in their daily life. And he does it with an amazingly infectious spirit and a positive attitude.

 

The purpose of the video is to raise awareness and money for ALS Research, on behalf of Jeremy and his family.  So  we are going to ask 100 companies to donate a penny to ALS research every time the video is watched online.  So we’d generate $1 toward a cure for ALS every time someone watches the video……the thinking is people will spread it virally like we experienced with the 100,000 people donating $1 each toward the mortgage and wheelchair accessible van.  We will list the 100 companies as sponsors and we will obviously be a sponsor as well.

 

Here's how simple it is:

-If you agree to be a sponsor of the video, email me and let me know your company will be a sponsor

-Everytime the video is seen on Youtube, you agree to donate a penny directly to the ALS Association

-We will prominently display your company as a sponsor and list your web address as a link

-You can cap your sponsorship at any level of views.  In other words, your company can sponsor the video up to a certain number of views (Example: XYZ company agrees to a penny per view for 10,000 views.  From the time they commit, they will be listed as a primary Sponsor for 10,000 views.  Once 10,000 additional views are logged, XYZ will forever be listed as a video sponsor.)

 

If you are interested, email me back and I will set you up within an hour