REALTORS® work hard to improve communities, often sacrificing their own time and energy for those who are less fortunate. For the past five years, REALTOR® Magazine’s Good Neighbor Society has helped REALTORS® grow and develop their charitable efforts through the Volunteering Works Program. The program, which matches REALTORS® who want to expand their community service outreach with a mentor, is now seeking entries.
“REALTORS® value service and will go the extra mile to improve lives by devoting volunteer hours in the communities where they live,” says National Association of REALTORS® President Gary Thomas. “The Volunteering Works program gives REALTORS® the opportunity to help other REALTORS® make a difference in the lives of those in need.”
The Good Neighbor Society is seeking applications from Realtors® who work on small-scale charitable efforts that have potential for growth. Five Volunteering Works applicants will be selected to receive a year of one-on-one mentoring from a member of the Good Neighbor Society and a $1,000 grant as seed money to help implement improvements to their community program. The Good Neighbor Society is comprised of past recipients of REALTOR® Magazine’s Good Neighbor Award.
Recipients will be selected based on their dedication to the community through volunteer work and the potential for their charitable work to be expanded or improved with the help of an expert mentor. Ideal candidates have been active in charity work, can identify specific challenges they would like to address with a mentor’s help, and have specific goals for the future of their community service project. Applicants must be NAR members.
2012 Volunteering Works recipient Jennifer D. Wiles of Wooster, Ohio, says the grant and mentoring has helped her charity, Golden Bear Brigade, support more soldiers stationed overseas. “My mentors, 2010 Good Neighbors Wendy and John Rocca, showed me a cost-effective way of mailing care packages to the troops that stretched our $1,000 grant even further,” says Wiles. “Volunteering Works enabled me to send more packages to the troops, bring in a speaker to meet with families on coping with deployment and invest in our annual fundraiser to create even more income.”
The REALTOR® Magazine Good Neighbor Award winners, who mentor the Volunteering Works recipients, on average spend more than 20 hours a week on volunteer work and have built and led some of the most effective charitable organizations in the country. Since 2000, there have been more than 130 winners and honorable mentions of the Good Neighbor Award.
Volunteering Works is funded by The Stuart & Jill Siegel Charitable Foundation.
For a Volunteering Works entry form, go to www.Realtor.org/gna and click on “Volunteering Works.” The entry deadline is Feb. 22, 2013. Recipients will be notified in April.
For more information, visit www.realtor.org.
