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Keller Williams takes care of its own. We have an internal "charity" for lack of a better term, called KW Cares, that is designed to provide help to Keller Williams (KW) agents in times of need. There is no better example than what happened after Hurricane Katrina.
Katrina caused about 1500 KW agents and their families to lose some or all of what they owned. A plea went out from Mo Anderson, Vice Chairman of Keller Williams Realty, for KW agents to donate funds to KW cares. Mo's specific challenge was to have KW agents and offices donate $5,000,000 to provide aid to Gulf States KW associates.
KW associates rose to the challenge, raising over $5.3 million. Leading the way was the Austin Southwest Market Center, raising over $98,000. The Lake Travis Market Center (my office) raised about $38,000, which was more per agent than any other KW office. Part of the Lake Travis effort included holding a cruise and silent auction.
OK, that's what KW does to help our own. What do we do for our communities? I can only speak for the Lake Travis Market Center, but we have done some pretty good things for our community. About a year ago, our office bought books for our community library. A year before that, a lot of our agents got together and helped s family improve their living conditions. We painted, cleaned and generally fixed up a home in order to make it more livable.
Another couple of projects helped a young man and his mom who live in our area. The young man was injured in a terrible automobile accident over a year ago. The young man is on a ventilator and confined to a wheelchair. His mom gave up work for a while to stay home and take care of him. KW has helped raise money to buy a van for Johnny and his mom. Without the van, he could not get around without a special school bus or an ambulance.
My office also did something that was very rewarding this past holiday season. We "adopted" the young man's family. Within a week, we raised enough money to buy all the presents on Johnny's wish list, which included presents for the young man, his mom and his sister. We had enough left over to provide gift cards to a local grocery store and a gasoline card.
The week of Christmas, three of us delivered part of the presents along with an artificial Christmas tree with all the trimmings. We set up the tree, but left the decorating to the young manand his nurse. The next two days saw two more of our agents delivering presents. Then on Christmas Day I delivered dinner to the family. This not only helped make a family's holiday better, but was very rewarding to everyone who participated.
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