This past month we've been working hard to help Estridge Homes setup and launch its website for the season finale of Extreme Makeover Home Edition - http://www.estridgeextremedream.com/. The site has been the center for volunteer and sponsor signup and every day I check the site or I hear from Estridge how many people have gotten involved, I'm just amazed at the way people come together when given a great cause. There's obviously some level of self promotion involved in all this - I'd be lying if I didn't admit we used this project as a push to finally get our own website complete in anticipation of some increased web traffic. Lets face it, most companies get involved in projects like this to gain exposure in the marketplace - everyone from a local cabinet company to national TV sponsor Sears, which supplies all the appliances in the homes built on the show. But they also get involved to contribute to something larger than themselves, something worth doing. And I think that's why the show seems to be such a huge success week to week: no one builder really constructs a house all by themselves.

We had the privilege of attending the volunteer pep rally hosted by Paul Estridge last Friday. It was a call to action of sorts, to the hundreds of volunteers and companies that will all donate their skills, their materials, their time and efforts to bring this project together. The production crew for the show was there explaining the logistics of how they pull off a complete home build in just a few days. At one point they were talking about the limited number of vehicles that could come to the job site each day. They explained how a plumber that works out of his truck needs to get access to the home at just the right time, drive into the job site, do his part and then quickly exit so the next contractor can move in. And therein lies the beauty in this whole show and project. Each person only has to donate a small part. The plumbers time and materials, a roofing crew for a day, an excavation company for a few hours.

So here we are donating our time to launch and maintain a website for just a few months. While building a website might seem just as foreign to most people as say wiring a breaker box, it's what we do every day. Given the current economic climate, I don't think many of us are in a position to donate large amounts of money to a cause, or to lead an effort this large like the folks at Estridge are doing. But in our case, we can afford to come together and build a website. In the grand scheme of things it's a rather insignificant part of the big picture, but something we're proud to be a part of.

Over the years we've always tried to maintain a number of pro bono projects in which we are involved. We donated some time to develop a website for The Little Star Center - http://www.littlestarcenter.com/ - a great school for autistic children outside Indianapolis, and we continue to support youth sports in our community by maintaining a website for the local baseball and softball organization - http://www.fishershseyouthbaseball.com. While these are pretty small projects in the grand scope of our day, I like to think we've helped out these organizations by letting them focus on the things they do best.