Homebuilder donates house proceeds to cancer research

Driving down Savory Mist Circle in one of Lakewood Ranch’s newest communities, Sweetwater, the streets are lined with construction vehicles. 

Day after day, builders make progress on the homes being constructed. 

But one house on Savory Mist Circle is more than just a dream home for one family. 

From the inside and out, the M/I Homes’ abode looks like the others being built on the street. But with every step of progress made on the 2,337-square-foot, three-bed, two-and-a-half bathroom house comes an opportunity to help millions of people. 

It’s called the Benefit Home. 

The proceeds from the sale of the Benefit Home will be donated to Pelotonia, an organization dedicated to providing funding for cancer research. After donations of labor and materials from trade partners, the donation is projected to be more than $110,000. (A Savory Mist Circle home the same size and specs sold May 21 for $630,000, Manatee County property records show.)

Greg Crawford, area president of M/I Homes of Sarasota, says almost everyone he knows has been impacted by cancer in some way, so building a home that will benefit cancer research is rewarding. “It makes everybody feel proud that we’re doing something that is going to help other people,” he says.

Pelotonia primarily funds research at James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University, one of the biggest cancer centers in the U.S. (Both M/I Homes and Pelotonia are based in Columbus, Ohio, home of Ohio State.) 

“We fund not just a single type of cancer. We fund every different type of cancer, every different sort of stage of treatment with the primary goal of trying to fund people and ideas early,” says Pelotonia CEO Joe Apgar.

The organization, he adds, delivers a dose of speed to the sometimes slow world of medical research by providing funding that would otherwise not be there. Ultimately, he says, the work Pelotonia does “gives people the gift of more time” to do what they love with the people they love, which is empowering and motivating.

Crawford says not only will proceeds from the sale of the home go toward M/I Homes’ donation, but more than 50 trade partners working on the home have contributed in some way, whether providing materials at a discounted rate or donating labor. It gives each of the trade partners a direct hand in making an impact. Then M/I Homes matches that number. 

Crawford says Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch is the first developer in M/I Homes of Sarasota’s division to contribute to a Benefit Home. 

There’s friendly competition among the various M/I Homes divisions, especially after the Sarasota division donated $80,000 through its Benefit Home built in Parrish last year. In addition to separate Tampa and Sarasota divisions, M/I Homes has units in 17 markets, from Austin to Detroit. Builders and cousins Melvin and Irving Schottenstein founded the company in 1976. 

Photo by Liz Ramos

Crawford says each division tries to out-do the other, with the real winner, of course, being Pelotonia. That competitive spirit led Crawford, who has worked for M/I in the Tampa Bay and Sarasota markets for nearly 20 years, to Lakewood Ranch. “We felt Lakewood Ranch was a very desirable location that would draw some attention and show the good that could be done from this organization,” Crawford says. 

Apgar says the support of M/I Homes has been amazing, especially considering that a single home can make a “massive difference” in the ability to fund research and help millions of people. “It’s really cool to see something that’s already a beautiful life milestone, which is buying a house, sort of having this double impact,” he says. 

He hears of that impact through stories from people who have had a hand in the construction of the home or the family living in it. Apgar recalls meeting a carpenter working on a benefit home in Tampa. He learned the carpenter was a cancer survivor himself and had directly benefited from research. Apgar says the man was thrilled to be able to use his craft to be able to support more cancer research — something he never thought would be possible. 

“It shows the power of how we can all have input on something much bigger than ourselves,” Apgar says. “It just shows the power of community and working together for all those beautiful things.”

The Lakewood Ranch home is expected to be completed by early September. The M/I Homes team will come together with its trade partners, Lakewood Ranch and most importantly, Apgar and Pelotonia staff, to mark the completion of the home and the donation to Pelotonia. 

“During the actual construction process we know we’re doing something good, but you feel it at the end when the home is done and we’re standing here with Joe and we hand him a very big check,” Crawford says. “It makes it all worth it.”