BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com
Champaign, Ill. – It’s Mo Anderson’s 82nd birthday.
And she’s invited around 180,000 people to her party!
The name Mo Anderson might not mean much to someone outside Keller Williams Realty, but the culture that she began to build within the Keller Williams organization when she became the CEO in 1995 has impacted lives throughout the world, both professionally and personally.
Under Anderson’s guidance, Keller Williams established 50 points of culture to guide agents on how to interact with each other, how to do business and how to interact with their peers as they work for the Keller Williams organization. While she was known as the “Velvet Hammer” for her uncompromising approach to business, Anderson also set a standard of culture that was based on her faith and compassion for others.
To recognize the culture Anderson built, Keller Williams established Red (renew, renergize and donate) Day to celebrate Anderson’s birthday. Each year, on the second Thursday of May, Keller Williams agents throughout the world, close their offices to engage in a service project that will leave a lasting impact on their local communities.
This year, approximately 75 to 100 Champaign County Keller Williams agents will dress in their work clothes to help C-U at Home, a non-profit organization that provides services and opportunities for Champaign-Urbana’s homeless population.
The agents will deep clean the drop-in center and four different transitional houses C-U at Home provides for their “friends without an address.” They also plan on doing some painting, pulling weeds and planting shrubs.
“We’re going to make it be livable and very comfortable for them, but the goal isn’t for them to stay,” Mahomet resident and Keller Williams Team Leader Renee Pride said.
As the Keller Williams team has prepared for Red Day on May 9, they have heard from St. Joseph resident and the Executive Director of C-U at Home, Rob Dalhaus over the course of the last six weeks.
Dalhaus has not only shared the vision of C-U at Home with the group, but also the mission and the success stories that he witnesses every day.
C-U at Home, an organization that is run on the backs of six staff members and a community of volunteers, provides the Phoenix Daytime Drop-In Center, transitional housing and rehabilitation program, street outreach and transportation.
Beginning in 2020, C-U at Home will take over the men’s emergency shelter operations. The goal will be to provide the first shelter available in Champaign-Urbana 365 days a year. They will also partner with the Champaign Township Office to provide manual labor jobs for their friends without an address.
“Their goal is to place them back into the workforce or be independent again,” St. Joseph resident and Keller Williams Agent Rhonda Littlefield said.
Pride said that the group knows that the 10 hours they spend working won’t change the world in one day, but they are already seeing the ripple effects of this project.
As real estate agents, Pride, Littlefield and the Keller Williams team comes in contact with lenders, vendors and marketing organizations all over the East Central Illinois area. Each “partner” that Keller Williams works with is invited to participate in Red Day.
Nearly all of the products the team needs to update the properties are donated through Keller Williams connections. They were even able to establish an ongoing connection that fills a need for C-U at Home.
“We’ve been able to form a relationship with somebody that we had here for a committee meeting that had a connection where (C-U at Home) now has access to the appliances and furniture that they need all the time,” Pride said.
The group has established enough volunteers and partnerships to make Red Day run smoothly, but they are still looking for financial help to take care of the $1,000 ticket to unclog a sewer line that is attached to one of the homes. (donate here)
“It’s not just what happens on this day, it’s making those connections with people,” she continued.
The most important connections the agents and staff can make, though, are the ones they establish with their “friends without a home.”
Littlefield remembers Red Day at C-U at Home a few years ago. As the group was working in the yard, a “friend” in a walker sat down in the yard to help.
“She moved around the dirt to help us plant things,” Littlefield said.
Littlefield also recalls that residents at Restoration Urban Ministries came to help the group when they served there during Red Day.
Dalhaus shared with the group that it’s unusual for someone to talk to a “friend without an address.”
“It means a lot for someone just to come up and talk to them,” Littlefield said.
“Sometimes they don’t need stuff or things,” Pride said. “It’s more so the respect and dignity that they are a human being.
“We are there just to also interact in a way where ‘you’re our peer, you’re a human being, let’s do this together.’ ”
Through her parents’ work at Lifeline Connect, a Christian faith-based solution to life-controlling drug and alcohol addictions, Pride has seen how those moments with people can turn into something wonderful.
“When you connect with someone when they are at a time in their life, that you can maybe make a bigger impact because they are in need of something that you can provide,” Pride said. “To me at my core, that is rewarding.
“As a company, it’s part of who we are.”
Pride is looking forward to bringing her eight-year old daughter and husband in on the experience.
Ken will help the Keller Williams team on Thursday and Bristol will come to the Keller Williams office to pamper the volunteers by painting their nails red on Wednesday.
“I’m sure I’m not the only one who has that conversation with my kid,” Pride said.
“Individually you think you’re going to make a difference, but to be part of an effort and a company where everybody keeps it top-of-mind is totally a different dynamic,” she continued. “It’s totally inspiring and the energy is amazing.”
By developing a one-on-one relationship with organizations and community members outside of the Keller Williams organization while also working alongside colleagues who have a desire to impact their community is something that Littlefield and Pride look forward to everyday.
“We know that (homelessness) is here, but when we get one-on-one relationships that opportunity totally changes the dynamic,” Pride said. “You are much more willing to get involved.”
Littlefield said that year-after-year the Keller Williams team looks at the task ahead of them on Red Day feeling slightly overwhelmed.
Aside from serving at C-U at Home and Restoration Urban Ministries, the group has also completed tasks for the Developmental Services Center and hosted a bike repair program in towns throughout Champaign County recently.
“It always works out,” she said. “We just feel so good at the end of the day for being able to help somebody.”
