Help the Holmes Establish their Home in SoDal

Welcome to our Go Fund Me, my name is Matt Templeton. I'm a Real Estate Advisor and South Dallas advocate. I first met Karl & Teia 2.5 years ago. At that time, I was struck by just how loving and thoughtful they both were. We were from different places, had different backgrounds and life experiences; we often used different language, but we shared the desire to help people oppressed by drugs, incarceration, prostitution, poverty, etc. to find freedom.

Karl & Teia Holmes are a beautiful story of God's redemptive work in society - and his ultra-generous love to us. It's sweet to see Karl's faithfulness in taking his kids to church every week, caring personally and whole heartedly for his little son, Karl Jr. and loving his sweet daughters, Sky and RiRi. Last year, after some other hardships, they found out that Karl Jr. was on the autism spectrum. Teia is a woman of commitment - working hard, caring for her children, checking on her elderly mother, always serving and present at church. This isn't meant to be a story of "look at them" but to see God working in the midst of challenges and the hardship of life to bring beauty, consistency, faithfulness, and hard work.

They didn't ask us to do this; they weren't trying to take advantage of the situation. We began praying a few months ago, with them, that the Lord would open up the means and opportunities for them to purchase their own house and be more deeply rooted in their community.

As a person who helps people find home for a living, I can attest that one of the greatest travesties of our day is when families lack the stability that comes from consistent family time in a home of their own. When you can create consistency and stability for children, they grow up more capable and ready to participate in society and the effects of the family unit reverberate.

Have you ever wondered - how can I help fight poverty or solve "systemic" issues? I believe the best way forward is to invest in people - one family at a time - and care about seeing all of their life restored and redeemed. There are other ways to participate in poverty fighting personally as we go forward. For today, you can give to help me plant a family, with a stable home, to live with and for the other people in their community.

Will you make an investment in a family that is living and serving in one of the most marginalized areas of the city?

Did you know that as a society we have some of the greatest cash reserves of all time? Trillions of dollars sitting in the bank unused and un-deployed. If you've been blessed with some excess, will you help me create an experience that will change the trajectory of another family's life?

Some of you might be thinking - why so much money - or why not just buy a cheaper house - why not just keep renting? The truth is all of those could be an option, but I'm not asking for practical - I'm asking for a life altering, extremely generous, tear-filled experience. This family isn't asking you to help move them into a less dangerous house or get them a place of their own. I am.

Sometimes in life, we are shown immeasurable kindness that we don't deserve. In fact, God gives us favor every day that we take for granted or call our own success. We could all use a little more thankfulness to the Lord's blessings and turn with those resources and give generously to others. Would you give $1000, $500, $200, $100, even $50 or $25 and then pray that this might come to fruition?

There's also a sweet truth in this - when we decide to partner together and support each other, we can make all sorts of things possible. We can heal hurt, ease poverty, and bring redemption to broken society, right now. We don't need to fight those who are oppressed or oppress us, we need to be reconciled, by God's grace, to those that are different than us.

On our real estate team, we don't just sell real estate, we say that we are a development company and an experience business. DEVELOPMENT - We develop people and want them to flourish in their talents and opportunities - building leaders and culture shapers. We want them to go out from us better than when they came. We want to empower them to do good work in civilization and promote other human flourishing. And EXPERIENCES - I wanted to create some of those "move that bus," golden buzzer, high point, inspirational, give-you-chills kind of experiences, in addition to our everyday commitment to high level customer service. These are the kinds of memories that stick out in our minds for the rest of our lives. We decided that all of the work we do for the rest of time will have those two components woven in - developing people and crafting magical moments that change the trajectory of people's lives.

Will you join me in shaping the kind of world that we want to live in?