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In January 2025, the Canyon Branch Library opened its doors in Boynton Beach, Fla. The 32,000-square-foot facility sits on land donated by GL Homes, a Florida home builder founded by Itzhak Ezratti 50 years ago. Residents of the surrounding community now have a resource that will serve them for decades.
GL Homes donated the land because Itzhak Ezratti has always believed that when you build in a community, you take on a responsibility to help that community thrive. That belief is the thread running through every philanthropic decision GL Homes has made since Itzhak founded the company in 1976.
The Founding Philosophy: Building has Always Meant More than Homes
Itzhak Ezratti founded GL Homes in 1976 with a single project in South Florida. From the start, the company operated on a set of values that treated integrity and long-term thinking as non-negotiables.
For Itzhak, those values were never abstract. They showed up in the decisions other developers didn’t always make, maintaining strict policies and holding the company to standards that extended well beyond the transaction itself. The measure of a home, in his view, was never just the structure, it was the community it contributed to.
That philosophy has remained consistent across five decades of growth. GL Homes Philanthropy, the company’s formalized giving program, is its natural expression: a recognition that responsibility to the people you build for doesn’t end at the property line.
GL Homes Land Donation
One of the most consequential and least-discussed forms of corporate philanthropy is land. Money can be donated and spent. Land, given to the right purpose, creates infrastructure that serves a community for generations.
Itzhak Ezratti understood this and has helped GL Homes donate land across Florida for schools, parks, libraries, fire stations and civic centers, quietly building the civic backbone of the communities it develops in. The Canyon Branch Library, as previously mentioned, is among the most visible recent examples. At 32,000 square feet, it offers residents a public resource that a check alone couldn’t have created.
This pattern of giving reflects Itzhak’s understanding of what communities actually need to function well: not just beautiful homes, but the infrastructure that supports education, safety and public life. By contributing land, GL Homes ensures that its presence in a community adds lasting value beyond the homes it sells.
GL Homes Philanthropy: Three Pillars Built on Founding Values
GL Homes Philanthropy organizes the company’s charitable work around three core areas: hunger relief, housing stability and children’s education. These pillars were not chosen arbitrarily. Each one connects directly to the founding belief that strong communities require that people’s most basic needs are met.
Hunger undermines everything. A child who doesn’t have enough to eat can’t learn. A family facing food insecurity can’t plan for the future. Housing instability has the same compounding effect: without a safe, stable place to live, every other opportunity becomes harder to reach. And education is where long-term change is made.
Itzhak Ezratti built GL Homes Philanthropy around these three pillars because they represent the foundation on which everything else is built, which is the same logic he has applied to home building over the years.
The Lord’s Place Meal Mobile and the Fight Against Homelessness
One of GL Homes Philanthropy’s most hands-on partnerships is with The Lord’s Place, a Palm Beach County nonprofit that operates a Meal Mobile delivering food and outreach services to people experiencing homelessness. GL Homes’ support for The Lord’s Place goes beyond financial contribution. Employees show up, they volunteer, and they participate directly in the work.
This kind of engagement reflects what Itzhak Ezratti built into the GL Homes culture from the beginning. Giving back isn’t a line in a budget. It’s something the people of GL Homes do together, in person, in the communities where they work. Programs such as GL Homes Philanthropy’s Summer of Service and Volunteer Spirit formalize that commitment, mobilizing employees across Florida each year in sustained volunteer activity.
The result is a philanthropic effort that carries genuine authenticity. When GL Homes partners with an organization like The Lord’s Place, it isn’t sending a check and moving on. It’s showing up consistently, over years, as a real partner in addressing one of the community’s most difficult problems.
Feeding South Florida: Scale and Personal Commitment
Food insecurity affects more than one million Floridians. GL Homes has partnered with Feeding South Florida, one of the region’s largest hunger-relief organizations, to address this challenge through both financial support and direct volunteer participation.
GL Homes employees have consistently joined Feeding South Florida distributions, sorting and packing food alongside volunteers from across the community. That personal engagement is important to Itzhak Ezratti. Corporate philanthropy that exists only on paper doesn’t build the same kind of community trust that comes from showing up and doing the work. The Feeding South Florida partnership reflects GL Homes’ commitment to being a present, active partner rather than a distant donor.
Children and Education: Investing in Who Comes Next
Itzhak Ezratti has long understood that the strength of a community depends on what happens to its children. GL Homes Philanthropy reflects that belief through a broad set of education and youth-focused investments.
The Passion for Playgrounds initiative funds safe, well-designed outdoor spaces for children in underserved areas, creating places where kids can play, socialize and develop in healthy environments. GL Homes supports Boys & Girls Clubs chapters across Florida, including those serving Palm Beach, Broward, Lee, Collier and St. Lucie counties. The relationship with Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County has been recognized with the organization’s Children’s Champion Award, a reflection of the depth and duration of the partnership.
GL Homes employees have volunteered with the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County through reading programs at local elementary schools. GL Homes also supports organizations including JAFCO (Jewish Adoption and Family Care Options), Place of Hope and Youth Haven, extending the company’s educational investment across the state.
What Itzhak Hopes the Next Generation Carries Forward
In 2016, Itzhak Ezratti became chairman of GL Homes. His son, Misha Ezratti is now the president and worked inside the company for many years prior, building relationships with the same team his father had built.
The values transfer that took place wasn’t about policy or procedure. It was about how GL Homes understands its place in Florida. Misha Ezratti has continued and expanded the company’s philanthropic commitments since 2016, reinforcing the belief that being a responsible home builder and being a good community partner are the same thing.
Itzhak Ezratti built GL Homes on the conviction that hard work, integrity and quality craftsmanship would thrive in the marketplace. Fifty years later, the libraries, playgrounds, food distributions and housing-stability programs supported by GL Homes Philanthropy carry that same conviction forward. Building great homes matters. Building stronger communities matters more.
The best measure of Itzhak Ezratti’s legacy isn’t a home count. It’s the lasting impact on the communities GL Homes has called home for nearly five decades.
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