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Orlando Home Builders Win NAHB Community Service Award

The association received the award in recognition of outstanding community service for its Mollie E. Ray Elementary School Partnership, an initiative to boost morale and improve failing state achievement test scores at a local elementary school.

"Winning the Home Builders Care Award is wonderful but not nearly as satisfying as knowing that we made, and are still making, a difference in the lives of these young elementary school children,” said Stephen D. Gidus, the association’s president. “Each of our member volunteers will tell you that the reward is instantaneous when a child learns to read, do math or can spell at grade level. Our members really do get a sense that ‘Home Builders are Community Builders’ when they teach, remodel a classroom or work on the landscape.”

During the 2002-2003 academic year, the Mollie Ray partnership, which brought the association together with Orlando-area businesses Bowyer-Singleton & Associates and Pecora & Pecora, provided more than 40 volunteers each week to assist with assemblies, school field trips and exam preparations.

The association also donated $1,500 toward school improvements, constructed a new front entrance, installed new shelving to provide students with more organized classrooms and worked with the fifth grade science club to design a landscape project for the school’s courtyard.

In June, the results from the state achievement test were released — Mollie Ray had jumped from an F to an amazing C+ in just one year.

“We are pleased to award this year’s honor to a service project that has such an immediate and important impact on the local community,” said Dale Stuard, a past president of NAHB and chairman of the National Housing Endowment, the philanthropic arm of NAHB. “It was a difficult decision since so many of the projects we reviewed resulted in a significant improvement in the lives of others, and it proves once again that home builders across the nation are committed to making a difference in their communities.”

The Mollie E. Ray Elementary School Partnership was selected from 42 entries submitted by NAHB members and local and state home builders associations.

The association received a $5,000 donation to its charity, the Mid-Florida Home Builders Foundation. The money will be used to support the Mollie Ray project, which has been extended through the current academic year, as well as other service projects in the Orlando area.

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