Habilitat Christmas Tree Project with Donovan Noble

This week on the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show, we interview Donovan Noble of Habilitat. Donovan shares the impact of Habilitat’s programs, the heart behind their Christmas Tree Project, and his personal journey of transformation and independence.

In Experts We Trust, we have Kyle Shimoda of INPAC Wealth who explains how DSTs can help investors—especially baby boomers—create more income with less hands-on management. Adrienne and Attilio highlight the importance of understanding returns, planning strategically, and choosing investments that balance income, growth, and lifestyle.

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Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE: 
Welcome back, and thanks for listening to the team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio, and if you have any questions, you can give us a call at 7999596, or check us out online at Team lally.com Well, our guest today is someone whose personal journey embodies resilience and renewal, after turning his life around through the life changing program at Habilitat He has spent the last two years growing into a dynamic leader in sales, marketing, PR, entertainment, events and fundraising,

ATTILIO: 
all right and but beyond his professional skills, Donovan and is also passionate advocate for Habilitats mission, and today he’s here to share the heart behind their Christmas Tree Project, one of the organization’s biggest community initiatives of the year. Please welcome back today’s guest, Donovan Noble, Oh, hey.

ADRIENNE: 
Well, we lost him. We lost him while we’re waiting for him, we can talk a little bit about the program. We can talk about him and the program and how team Lally has supported Habilitat in the in the past. Yep. So one of the great they’re doing right now is the Christmas tree program.

ATTILIO: 
Let’s talk about, let’s start with the basics. What is Habilitat?

ADRIENNE: 
So it is a program that helps people live in, live in, live in program, and it helps people really, just turn their lives around. And has really made a big difference in, I don’t know, they’ve been around for, like, what, over 50 years.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, 50 years, and they’re, you know, it’s helping people in our community fight addiction and all of that. And it’s in Kaneohe. They have a nice dock right in front of this property. The property was purchased like back in the 60s or 70s and stuff like that. This would fast forward today. This would be a multi million dollar project, but property, but it’s located right there on Kaneohe Bay, and it’s a live in facility. You have to apply for it, and you have to fulfill their requirements to participate in this program. A lot of times it’s the choice between incarceration and being involved with this program. What is cool about this program? The recidivism rate is one of the lowest. That means that when people are have addiction go through these programs, the rate of them falling back into these challenging lifestyle habits is very low compared to other programs nationwide. They have literally one of the best success rates in the nation. Have been consistently doing this year after year for many years. So if you do get a call from habilitap for like donations for the auctions or to participate in their auctions, please take that call. They have a bunch of other services on and we’re going to have Donovan on here speaking about it directly. But they have a lot of businesses that they’re running out. Out of there, and people are put to work to be productive and so and then obviously that money is put back into the program for Adrienne and I. We like it because we go over there and teach some classes, we donate books to their library. And here we have Donovan. Aloha.

ADRIENNE: 
Donovan. Hi, Donovan. Yes. Thanks for joining us. Hello, hello. So we see that you’re you’re streaming in from your your Christmas tree.

DONOVAN: 
Yes, live here at our stadium mall location for all of our Christmas tree lots. We do have nice other ones.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, I can hear the chainsaws in the background. No, no, no, no, no, no more chainsaws in the big round, they all cut already. So you guys been doing this for many, many years, huh? This Christmas tree thing?

DONOVAN: 
Yes, actually, the sign behind me says since 1974

ATTILIO: 
since 1970 Oh, you know what was happening in 1974 I think Star Wars came out. No, no was, I think it was like 77 so Star Wars was about to come out.

ADRIENNE:
So, so Donovan, while we were waiting to bring you back on, we were sharing a little bit about Habilitat and the program and, like, the big difference that it does make in people’s lives. And we just, we thank you for coming on and tell us a little bit more about the program and how it’s helped you,

ATTILIO: 
yeah, tell us about Well, first of all, share with people what is Habilitat,

DONOVAN: 
of course. Um, yeah, of course. Habilitat, non profit organization, has been around for 50, almost 55 years, coming up in January, nice. Um, we provide vocational training through sales and marketing. Um, residential maintenance, landscaping, tree trimming, projects, fencing, custom gates as well as culinary arts and administrative work. We are not just a vocational training program workforce development, but we also provide a recovery community for those in dire need, such as myself. I myself came from incarceration and homelessness and had nowhere else to turn to and look towards. But Habilitat said, Here, com, we’ll help you out with everything you have and take all take all your baggage and help you alleviate everything. Today I can say I’m no longer on paper. I don’t have probation. I now have my driver’s license. I have no debts, and Habilitat help, helped me become an independent man to where I can take care of all this business and be have a better feeding on the ground.

ATTILIO: 
And I like you guys work workforce development, because and sheen bring back that list there, because that was like when huge list. You guys do fences, you do landscaping. You guys also, you guys prepare meals. Who tell people all the like, in you guys commercial kitchen, who you guys prepare meals for?

DONOVAN: 
Oh, yeah, we do it for Meals on Wheels, care Hawaii, C, E, R, this new one is called, we call it waltz, W, U, C, S, over in white, on by all escape park at the bank. Um, we also provided for us vets, Kapolei Waianae Civic Center, and we would provide roughly about 300,000 meals a year.

ADRIENNE: 
Wow, that is a lot of cooking.

ATTILIO: 
That is one lot of mac salad that is like one tractor trailer, double tractor trailer of mac salad that you guys making every year.

ADRIENNE: 
I want to say also, you know, for our listeners, if you have any of those home renovation projects, please go to the habilitat website and consider using them, you know, for the construction, the fences the land, because, like all this, you know, the funds goes back into the program right to support. Yeah, so you guys, you’re doing a great thing for

ATTILIO: 
how come? I’ll put the vinyl fence up. Then you guys sitting in your backyard, you enjoy, you know, you just enjoying your time. You see, you look over, you see, you see that vinyl fence. It’s I giving back to the community

DONOVAN: 
all the services that we do, whether it’s a fence, lawn, lawn mowing, the Christmas tree sales that we’re doing, it all goes directly back to the program for the next person coming in and basic operational needs. So everything is definitely supporting the program.

ATTILIO:
Yeah, and I know you guys have call center there, so people, if you’re getting a recall if you’re getting a call. Hello. This is Donovan from Habilitat. I want you to respond. I want you to be nice. I want you to listen and get your checkbook out. Because, you know, everybody always this is how it is with people. We all complain about all the challenges in our community, but we don’t want to do something to support it. And I think the number one way that people can support it is be receptive and kind to you guys inbound phone calls, and just even if you can give a little or participate, plus you guys are like, like, all these services that you provide, homeowners and people in Hawaii is using these services. So if you want to have a really impact on your community usability. Habilitat, yes, probability. What else?

ADRIENNE: 
Same thing for the Christmas trees. Christmas trees, Christmas trees. Donovan share with the listeners about this Christmas tree program. Like, where can listeners go to reserve? Like, how do they participate?

DONOVAN: 
Yeah, of course, yeah. The best part about our Christmas tree project is that we support and partner up with public schools, private schools, sports organizations, and within the past 10 years, we’ve helped them raise over a million dollars for them alone. We do have multiple locations, if someone did a pre order of Christmas trees, or if they just want to come by and check it out and take a look. We have one over here at Stadium mall, right next to ice palace. We have another one over at Central Union church. We got one at the Hawaii Kai shopping center and Kanye shopping center as well. We are open from Monday to Friday, from 12pm to 9pm and on Saturdays and Sundays, we will be open from 9am to 9pm so we’ll be here pretty much every single day, all day tomorrow, though Thanksgiving, everybody stay home and eat up those turkeys.

ADRIENNE:
Yes, how many? How many trees do you guys move every every year? Like, what’s the what’s that number?

DONOVAN: 
More than I like to say. But we usually, generally move around 7000 trees at the location I’m at right now, roughly 1100 trees, just by basic guessing. Um, we have a whole new container that just came in with 500 plus trees. The container I have right behind me has about 500 plus trees as well. And we have different sizes, two feet all the way up to 10 feet. Um, different types of trees. We got our nordmans, our nobles, our Douglas and our grant So, absolutely beautiful trees. Please come by and check it out.

ADRIENNE:
Yeah, you guys have also wreaths as well too.

DONOVAN: 
Wreaths, door charm and we have those miniature versions of the wreaths called candle rings.

ATTILIO: 
Oh, nice. I think you guys should like, right at the end. You know, you always get the scraggly tree. I call them the Charlie Brown scraggly tree. I think people should like, go right away, go get that one. Donate $500 to habilitate. Get the scraggly Charlie Brown tree. Help out the program. You know, this is the reason for the season. Is our you know, whether you’re whether, whether you’re have Christian beliefs or not, or any kind of faith, is about serving our community. I don’t think there’s a better way that we can, even if you just a nice person, want to get back from the universe, go to these locations and buy them all out. Help support. These guys are out there working in the community, giving back. And what else we want to talk about with Habilitat?

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Don’t go for it.

DONOVAN: 
If you don’t think that Christmas trees in Hawaii is Christmas enough for you, let us know. We can go ahead and put some snow on it and you can bring that home. So, yeah, what’s a freshly snowed nice tree.

ADRIENNE: 
I love that. That’s a great solution.

ATTILIO: 
And by the way, I let in the people know I’m not swearing right now, but they call that flocking. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. You’re like, whoa, what you said? No, yeah. Can you do some flocking on my tree? Exactly. Not swearing. I’m not swearing. That’s just what it’s called. But anyway, okay, so you can put the snow on there. That’s cool. And then what else?

ADRIENNE: 
Donovan, was there anything else about Habilitat That you wanted our listeners to know about, or, like any other ways that our listeners can support Habilitat?

DONOVAN: 
Yeah, yeah. There’s actually a few things in the coming year, we do plan on hosting our second annual golf tournament, um, we’re going to have it at the Mid Pacific Country Club over in Kailua. So definitely can give us a call about that, for whether you want to register a team or if you want to support in any type of donation. That’s definitely possible. We do have a online auction coming up again next year as well. If you want to support in that way. Yeah. If not, you can always check it out at Oahu auctions.com but feel free to check out our website ability, tab com for all that information, or just give us a call. 808-235-3691, and just ask for Donovan. Yeah.

ATTILIO: 
So yeah, we were talking about it earlier, how you guys success rate is higher than the national average, as far as helping people, getting them back into the community, being productive citizens and and having great lives. And so thank you so much for you guys participation in all of this. And so Donovan, here’s I’m going to share a message out to our business owners out there, because they’re the reason it’s not the reason you should support it, but it is a benefit when you do support it, it’s called for benefit marketing. For benefit marketing. So when the consumer. You business people, is looking at your business and another business, and they cannot tell the difference. 95% of the time, they will choose the business that’s giving back to the community. So here’s what I don’t recommend. Here’s your marketing tip for you business people, you can go over there, make them big donation, get one of those foam checks. Take home picture this foam check of this 50 grand you went donate to a billet hat and then, and then put that up on your website, and then more people gonna come do business with you. Now that’s not the reason you should do it, but it is a benefit. Before doing the red thing, doing the right thing and taking care of people,

ADRIENNE: 
and I would say, also give back, also business owners as well, like if you see on an applicant’s resume that they’re a graduate of Habilitat? No, yeah. Know that there has been lots of transmissive amount of like, personal development and work done. And at Team Lally, we always open that up. So Donovan, we’re talking to you. Yeah, we’re interested in real estate. We know the kind of work that you guys do at Habilitat and, you know, just other business owners like they are, you know, these are hard working people, yeah, that will be wonderful team members, you know, within the different industries.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, all right. Donovan, anything else?

DONOVAN: 
Um, no, I really want to tell you guys, thank you so much for having me.

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah, yes. And we’ll, we’ll see you soon. We’re gonna come get a tree.

DONOVAN: 
Yeah, okay, perfect. See you guys soon. All right, okay.

ADRIENNE: 
All right, so that’s um, Habilitat. You guys go check them out. Um, we’ll go to the website donation. Go reserve your tree, or just go, go visit, go talk story.

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