Gratitude is a big deal at Garman Homes. It’s a huge part of our culture. 

In fact, there’s a line in our Manifesto that reads, “we combat any traces of entitlement with a deep and abiding practice of genuine gratitude.” 

For us, gratitude isn’t just about being thankful, it’s also about refusing to take anything for granted.  It’s about training your mindset to see how much good surrounds us and acknowledging it. It’s saying thank you in words and actions.  It’s seeking new and different ways to express gratitude...in the small unseen ways and in the big ways that stretch us beyond what we think is possible. 

No month is a more powerful reminder of our collective gratitude than November.  But this November may be the greatest example of our gratitude yet. 

On the 11th Day of the 11th Month of this year, we had the extraordinary privilege and honor to say thank you to a fallen hero by giving a home to his family.  SFC Elis A. Barreto, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, was killed in action in September of 2019 leaving behind a wife, two sons and a daughter.  On November 11th, in partnership with Newland Communities, our trade partners and Keller Williams Realty, we welcomed our hero’s family home to Wendell Falls.

This home was the 22nd Hero Home built through Operation Coming Home and our second built to honor a fallen soldier.  In 2017 we built Hero Home #16, the first to honor a fallen soldier, SGT Justin B. Onwordi, gifted to his widow and their children in Knightdale Station. 

During the Key Ceremony I talked a lot about heroes.  About how the more I tried to get to know our hero the more acts of heroism I experienced personally.  Like gratitude, the more I acknowledged it, the more I experienced it.  About how heroes unite us when the world divides us because heroes don’t pick and choose who they serve.  Heroes serve us all under an umbrella of higher purpose and meaning.  How incredibly fortunate are we to be under that umbrella?  

While a hero’s death has a profound effect on us it also bestows an unexpected gift.  Because in telling and hearing our hero’s story we are each reminded of our true potential as the heroes of our own lives.  

So as November comes to a close, we find ourselves inspired to find even more ways to pay it forward.  And inspired to develop an even deeper practice of genuine gratitude for the gift of our hero’s legacy.