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3rd Annual "RED Day" Lends a Hand

KW Metropolitan and Ryan Middle School join together as part of community service initiative in the US and Canada.

Short for "Renew, Energize and Donate," RED Day was created to unite Keller Williams Realty offices and associates in an international day of service. During RED Day 2010, over 35,000 Keller Williams associates participated in activities ranging from food and blood drives to cleaning up trash in public parks, doing yard work for neighbors in need or revamping gardens at nursing homes.

As part of the RED Day effort this year, KW Metropolitan spent the day volunteering at Ryan Middle School. The City of Houston has been collaborating with Ryan Middle School during the pilot year of a national community outreach program, Cities of Service. Cities of Service was originally founded in New York City in 2009 by 17 mayors, and now includes more than 100 mayors nationwide. KW Metropolitan worked at the school with more than 80 children painting, building, landscaping and taking on other various projects to enhance their learning facility.

"At Ryan, we believe that partnerships such as this serve to propel our mission of STRENGTH. We want our scholars exposed to the world beyond our school walls and KW Metropolitan and The City of Houston's Cities of Services initiative are to be commended for helping us make our mission and vision for Ryan more than text, but a reality".

"We are always ready to paint Houston red! We are excited to be a part of RED Day and to continue the important company tradition of giving," said Team Leader, Bruce Kink. "Last year, KW Metropolitan volunteered at Second Chance Refuge Mission. This event had a significant impact on each of us personally-it felt so great to give back to the community we know and love."

For more information about RED Day visit www.kw.com/redday.

For more information about the charities or Keller Williams Metropolitan office, call Candace Caspersen at 713.621.8001 or visit www.kwmet.com

Golf Tournament

Keller Williams Metropolitan and KW Cares hosted their first annual golf tournament on June 1, 2009, benefiting SEARCH, a charity dedicated to responding to the needs of the homeless. The tournament took place at Hermann Park Golf Course and the festivities continued throughout the evening with a barbecue dinner, silent auction and raffle drawing.

Candace Caspersen, Team Leader, would like to thank their Gold sponsors Texas Coastal Bank; Prime Lending – Johnson, Deluca, Kennedy & Kurisky, P.C. (Richard L. Spencer); Bronze Sponsors Loyd Russel Homes, L.P.; Allied Home Warranty; SRX Group, Matt Mannon; Charter Title Company; Lasting Impressions Home Management & Staging - Connie Parsons; Nancy Owens Memorial Foundation; Houston Association of Realtors, Southwest Business Printers; Hole In One Sponsor Nationwide Insurance – Leash Yu; and advertisers StarTex Title, First American Title, Charter Title and Old Republic Title.

This event was organized by the Metropolitan KW Cares Committee, Margie Dorrance, Chairman and Gayle Kennedy, Co-Chairman. KW Cares is a public charity that raises money through Keller Williams’ offices nationwide to provide emergency financial assistance to any member of the KW family during times of extreme hardship and benefit charities in the community where their associates live, work and play.

Keller Williams Metropolitan and KW Cares are pleased to have supported such an essential charity in our Houston community by presenting a check to SEARCH in the amount of $7,500.00

For more information about the charities or Keller Williams Metropolitan office, call Candace Caspersen at 713.621.8001 or visit www.kwmet.com

The HAR Realtor Celebration 2010

The HAR Realtor Celebration 2010 was held on Wednesday, Dec 16, 2010, at Hilton of the Americas.   The room was filled with many of the best and brightest Realtors in Houston. The Keller Williams Metropolitan office was well represented with 50 agents in attendance to cheer on two of their very own who were honored and sworn in to serve as part of the 2010-2011 HAR Board of Directors. The Metropolitan’s Margie Dorrance will serve as HAR Chairman and Weldon Rigby will serve as HAR Director. Both agents have been members of HAR for 30+ years and have given of their time and talent toward innovative pursuits in the Realtor community and beyond. They have each recently celebrated an important milestone in their marriages – 25 years for Weldon and 50 years for Margie. With input and insight from these two dedicated individuals, the future of HAR will be both forthright and dynamic.

Weldon Rigby, a Keller Williams Metropolitan agent since 2004, will serve as an HAR Director. He was elected under the franchise division and also served in this capacity in 2007/2008.   Weldon has been in Real Estate for 40 years and for the past 35 years he has been running his own Real Estate business, specializing in upscale residential properties. He is well known and respected in this arena and he played an important part in founding the Keller Williams Luxury division in 2006. He believes the key to his success is follow up and follow through with his clients, making sure to deliver more than he promises. Weldon has been a consistent Top Producer in his office and nationally and has contributed his insight as part of the Agent Leadership Council at his office for the past five years. His experience and tenacity will be a huge benefit to the HAR Board of Directors.

Margie Dorrance, a Keller Williams Metropolitan agent since its inception in 1997, is excited about the opportunity to serve as HAR Chairman of the Board. Wednesday’s program was filled with accolades for Margie’s many contributions, both in Real Estate and the Houston community as a whole.   Margie’s husband, Bubba, and her three children, John, Jennifer and Jessica, joined Margie on the stage to show their support. John spoke and gave many examples of his mother’s drive and dedication to everything she does and concluded by saying, “We know that together Margie and HAR are going to make it happen in 2010.” This was the general consensus, as the speakers continued to cite examples of her selfless pursuits and community affiliations.   Mark Willis, CEO of Keller Williams Realty International, addressed Margie with this quote, “I’ve never known a more positive and energetic person than you.” Mark also expressed his gratitude for Margie’s contributions to Keller Williams and described her as an incredible visionary, always leading and coming up with new ideas.   Margie was quoted as saying, “It’s not about what you’ve done so far. It’s about your capacity to learn and grow in the future.”   This credo surely grew from Margie’s self-professed tireless effort toward refining the values provided by her parents.

As Margie spoke about her vision for HAR and the Houston community in the coming year, her passion for helping people and leading by serving was evident. She spoke about the importance of generously sharing to help create powerful communities and announced her intention to expand Realtor participation in community charities. Margie concluded by saying, “Join me in being positive about the challenges and optimistic about the opportunities.” With her upbeat energy and innovative spirit, HAR and the Realtor community is undoubtedly in good hands under the tutelage of Margie Dorrance.

Salvation Army Volunteer

It has only been a day since the snow has fallen and the sleet has melted and here we are, out on a new mission. Today is December 7th Keller Williams official work day at the Salvation Army Secret Santa Workshop. We approach the enormous warehouse we see familiar faces dressed in red- Gayle Kennedy, Gail Nash, Kenneth Zarella, Darrell Clifton, and Nicole Alonso were up bright and early ready to make dreams come true. It’s hard to find someone not dressed in red these past few weeks. As the holidays draw closer we see those around us don the customary red and green holiday colors. But we don’t dress in red for a few weeks out of the year; we live in red-Keller William’s red. As the largest office in Houston, Keller Williams Metropolitan, are proud to be trailblazers for our fellow offices. We pride ourselves on the culture we cultivate every single day and the contributions we bring to our community. That is why we are here this morning, because we believe every small contribution makes a big difference in someone’s life. We walk up to the Salvation Army Volunteer booth and sign in. After we had tied up our aprons and said our good mornings we followed the women in charge to the back of the warehouse. As we make our way past the stacks of books, piles of donations, and bags ready to be filled we could see we had our work cut out for us. Perhaps we should have stopped for coffee, something to help us get through this task. For the next few hours it was organized chaos- agents folding donation bags, some sorting bags according to location, others keeping track of every single bag that was ready to be processed and sent out, and still others were filling bags that had yet to meet their quota of gifts. I myself was folding donation bags, hundreds of white labeled bags laid before me on the table, such a tedious task I thought. A hundred bags later I was beginning to feel a bit silly, how was folding bags helping anyone? Then almost like she could read my mind the volunteer leader said to the group, “Remember no job is big or small, every job counts, and plays a large role in making our job easier and making us more efficient.” That was enough encouragement to keep me at the folding table, and reminded me why we were there. We were there because any tiny bit of work we did was going to help make Christmas wonderful for a child somewhere out there. And that fact alone was enough to make us push harder and do more. As our shift came to an end we said our goodbyes to those we had worked with and hello to the new shift of Keller Williams agents that had shown up. Even as we left we already had plans for our next mission- our own toy drive. As of yesterday our toy drive has been a success. We collected a ton of toys and again have our eyes on a new goal. As the year ends we introduced another aspiration collecting sweaters, socks, and shirts for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Al l in a day’s work for the staff and agents at the Keller Williams Metropolitan.