The Ebby Halliday Companies is built on a foundation of generosity, extending back to the days when Ebby Halliday herself was running the iconic residential real estate brand. Now a new generation of agents have readily adopted her personal mantra, “Do Something for Someone Every Day,” and are living it out in a variety of ways.
A most recent example is the Back-to-School Backpack Drive initiated by the company’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council. Agents from Ebby Halliday Realtors and Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate were given school supply lists for Ebby Halliday Elementary School in southeast Dallas, and asked to provide.
The company’s more than 30 offices quickly responded, and within a week, hundreds of backpacks filled with notebooks, pencils and more, were being delivered to the school – in plenty of time for Meet the Teacher night on August 12.
CEO & President Chris Kelly was quite pleased by the effort.
“Given what we’ve asked the children in our communities to endure and overcome these past 18 months,” said Kelly, “helping get their school year off on the right note is the least we can do to contribute towards their success. I am incredibly proud of how the entirety of the Ebby Halliday Companies rallied around the challenge issued by our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council.”
Sylvia Sotelo Kidd and Pamela Young are EHC’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion officers as well as sales leaders with Ebby Halliday’s offices in Rockwall and Forney, and Southwest Dallas, respectively.
“The Council’s goal was to gather 650 backpacks and we beat that by three!” said Kidd. ”We also have additional supplies for almost 100 more students.”
“Our mission with community outreach efforts like this is twofold,” Kidd continued. “We want to encourage both internal growth among our agents, staff and executives, and growth among our own community members. We want to ensure they have the opportunity to bridge generational wealth gaps. This mindset can start as early as Kindergarten.”
Added Young, “In addition to this, committee members have already identified a few key areas in North Texas where we plan to hold educational seminars regarding credit and lending, and host other beneficial programs. The potential to own a home should be for everyone.”
Ebby Halliday Elementary opened in August 2011 as part of a 2008 DISD bond package. The two-story, environmentally-friendly school is set in a rural-like area called Rylie where manufactured homes and horses are a common sight. Just behind the school, bulldozers prepare lots for a large single-family housing development, perhaps a sign of hope for community members that owning a home can be for them, too.
