Douglas wants to help you.”Ī week later, Roland called me and said, “I don’t want his money, I want your time!” Douglas said “OK,” and that very day I sent Roland Ganges at Jefferson High School a basket of Snookies Cookies… I sent them directly to his classroom with a note that said, “Mr. I went to my boss, Jon Douglas, and said, “Instead of funding the rich kids in Brentwood who don’t really need it, why don’t we fund a teacher in the inner city and help hundreds of children in desperate need?” Mr. We had 30 offices and hundreds of brokers I was Marketing/Advertising Director and was also in charge of giving Jon Douglas funding out to the local schools and charities sponsored by each of the 30 offices. I read his story and that was the start of A Place Called Home.Īt that time, I was vice president of the Jon Douglas Realty Company.

At the bottom left hand corner of the page, a teacher named Roland Ganges from Jefferson High School in downtown L.A. I was very moved by that story, and two days later, a full-page ad appeared in the Los Angeles Times featuring gifted teachers from across California. It was a drama based on the life of Jaime Escalante, a high school teacher who changed the lives of hundreds of children. In 1988, I went with my son, Gideon, and saw “Stand and Deliver,” a movie most of you have probably seen (and if you haven’t, I highly recommend it). The question that people always ask me is, “How and why was A Place Called Home conceived?” The purpose of this letter is to give you that answer.

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