The mission and core values are still solidly the same, but The Neighbor Project—a social change organization, part of which started as our family’s small foundation—has a new website and new branding. These are cleaner and more direct, I think, and more forcefully show how home ownership builds up communities and family wealth. How this also develops leadership, and how The Neighbor Project has been honored for this with, among many other things, a 2016 citation as one of the “Top 100 Most Innovative” social change enterprises in the world, and a 2024 $2 million gift from Yield Giving, MacKenzie Scott’s philanthropic organization.
Opening shot of the VIDEO below
But you never gain something without losing some things, so this post—as part of this site’s mission to preserve the history of Bryan House, Emmanuel House, and now The Neighbor Project—looks to preserve some of the old stuff. (Go HERE for a compilation of most of that history.) The VIDEO below, was used for years on the old website’s landing page and played many times at Neighbor Project galas and other events to introduce or re-introduce The Neighbor Project to everyone. I narrate it and remember so clearly the afternoon I recorded it at the Zero Gravity studios in downtown Aurora. My first take, I tried to sound so “professional,” but, said the recording tech, “You’re sounding a little like a voice from Star Wars. Try it again in your own voice.” So I did, easy and natural. They had planned to use other voices reading different parts of the script, but in the end I guess I sounded good enough alone. Cheryl Pacillio, a key member of The Neighbor Project staff, always said it made her misty-eyed every time she heard the first line of the narration: “What is a city without its people?”
And speaking of Cheryl. The Video below also opened The Neighbor Project’s first, and so far only, virtual gala, which was streamed on September 19, 2020, the first year of our pandemic, which forced many things to go virtual. Watch the full virtual gala HERE. It’s 47 minutes long, hosted by Cheryl and Peter Burchard, our fabulous live auctioneer at earlier Neighbor Project (and Emmanuel House) galas. The video is itself a mini-history of The Neighbor Project and contains several other wonderful videos. There’s one explaining Illinois’ first Financial Empowerment Center, sponsored by The Neighbor Project and the City of Aurora. There’s a section honoring our long-standing relationship with Exelon Corporation. There’s a moving video about Jerria Donelson, a key Neighbor Project staff member who suddenly realizes that Neighbor Project programs—some of which see oversaw!—could lead to home ownership and a more secure future even for herself. There’s one of our earlier video’s “Kai’s Story,” about Burmese refugee Pao Kai, who started out at Bryan House, the earliest incarnation of what is now The Neighbor Project—after Bryan House became Emmanuel House and Emmanuel House merged with The Joseph Corporation to form The Neighbor Project. And there’s executive director Rick Guzman’s talk “Every Person’s God-Given Ability to Contribute,” the best single place to catch the growth, vision and values of The Neighbor Project. (It’s also on this site HERE).
Rick and Desiree Guzman started Bryan House in 2007 as a living memorial to Rick’s youngest brother Bryan Emmanuel Guzman, whom we lost in 2006 just days after his 21st birthday. From its earliest days as a small foundation to today as The Neighbor Project, a foundation and social change enterprise honored as one of the best in the nation, I remember more keenly every day that it was all born out of the pain of losing my youngest child.