RISMEDIA, September 7, 2010—Two RE/MAX agents, who recognized and responded to a need in their communities, have been nominated by the National Association of Realtors for Realtor Magazine’s annual ‘Good Neighbor’ Award, RE/MAX has announced. Janice Mueller, of RE/MAX Creative Realty in Lexington, Kentucky, and Joseph D. Perry of RE/MAX Gold in Clovis, California, are two of 10 finalists chosen from across the country. Both Mueller and Perry have dedicated their work to children, and share their time and talent to help those who need it.
RE/MAX is the only company with two agents among the top finalists. Mueller is the broker/owner of RE/MAX Creative Realty, and founded The Makenna Foundation, which has raised more than $1.2 million for the Kentucky Children’s Hospital. This summer, the foundation celebrated the grand opening of the Makenna David Pediatric Emergency Center, with a child-friendly waiting room and 15 state-of-the-art exam rooms.
“My eyes were opened when I learned that these hospitals get money for research but rely heavily on donations for general funding and expansion,” Mueller says. “We work ourselves to the bone to get the hospital and the kids what they need. It’s very important to our office to do what we can.”
Perry, an agent with RE/MAX Gold, founded an afterschool mentoring and tutoring program called Boys2Men Girls2Women, which has grown to serve 125 children, ages 6-18. Most of the kids are from low-income single-parent households in Fresno, California, where the dropout rate is one of the highest in the country and 35% of children live below the poverty level.
The program pairs each child with caring mentors and provides homework assistance, individualized tutoring and leadership development classes. Perry started it after he kicked a boy out of a Sunday school classroom 10 years ago.
“He had been kicked out of every program, and his mother asked me, ‘If church won’t help me, who will?'” says Perry, who agreed to mentor the boy on his own. “I founded the organization as more or less an answer to her question. Our organization will never give up on a child.”
According to RE/MAX, five of the 10 nominees will receive $10,000 grants for their organizations, and the five runners up will get $2,500 grants. They’ll be announced in Realtor Magazine’s November/December edition, and the awards presented in New Orleans in November at the 2010 National Association of Realtors Conference.
The Good Neighbor Awards program recognizes Realtors who volunteer to serve the basic needs of their community’s most vulnerable individuals; donating countless dollars and unpaid hours of service to improve and enhance their communities.
For more information, visit www.remax.com.
