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Opening your wallet or doing charitable work to help struggling members of your community is always commendable. For the 2014 Good Neighbor Award winners, giving back is a way of life. When they see a hole in the social or economic safety net, they don’t ask a lot of questions; they dive in to fix it. Since last year alone, the winners have put in a combined 5,000 volunteer hours and raised millions of dollars.
Jane B. Locke eases the burden on parents of children with disabilities.
Tricia Carlisle-Northcutt makes possible free health care for children.
Edward R. Pompeian opened a recovery house for transplant patients.
Rosemary Tran Lauer funds quality child care for low-income familes.
Paul Wilson helps save lives through an ultramarathon.
REALTOR® Magazine’s Good Neighbor Awards is celebrating its 15th year of recognizing REALTORS® who make an extraordinary impact on others through volunteering. As a result of the Good Neighbor Awards and its related programs, including Volunteering Works, we have honored more than 175 REALTORS® and supported their charities through more than $1 million in donations.
Honorable Mentions
The 2014 Good Neighbors and honorable mentions channel their passions in various directions, but they share one goal: Make the world a better place. The five Good Neighbor honorable mentions, who each will receive a $2,500 grant for their charities, are listed below.
Jill Dover | Sherwood Realty, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Dover is president of Senior Sing A-Long, which enriches the lives of seniors in care facilities through free concerts, music therapy, and customized playlists. Dover coordinates 150 performances a month for 8,000 seniors in eight counties. She serves 67 long-term care facilities, veterans’ homes, and rehab facilities. seniorsingalong.org
Gail Doxie | RE/MAX Realty Group, Fort Myers, Fla.
In 2007, Doxie founded the Miles of Smiles Foundation, which offers equine-assisted therapy for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Doxie, who holds a master’s degree in mental health counseling, helps veterans rebuild trust and confidence through their work with horses. milesranch.org
Robert J. Fitzsimmons | Gateway Arms Realty Corp., Staten Island, N.Y.
Since 1981, Fitzsimmons has been a tireless volunteer for the Seamen’s Society for Children and Families, which finds foster homes for at least 300 New York City youths each year and offers a range of related education programs. Fitzsimmons oversees the organization’s annual calendar drive, a fundraiser that has raised almost $500,000 over the past 33 years. seamenssociety.org
Dorothy (Dottie) Gokey | Gokey Real Estate, Clinton, N.Y.
Gokey is president of The Business Training Institute, which provides educational and support services to high-risk children and families in Utica, N.Y., including new immigrants and refugees. Gokey launched a series of family workshops to address such issues as bullying and dropout prevention.
Beth Smoot | Fonville Morisey, Raleigh, N.C.
Smoot and her business partner saw a need for a ”food pantry for furniture” and put their staging expertise and business acumen to work. Since creating The Green Chair Project in 2010, they have furnished 624 households for people in need, including those transitioning from homelessness or incarceration, and diverted 577 tons of furnishings from landfills. thegreenchair.org
Our Sponsors
Liberty Mutual Insurance is the primary sponsor of REALTOR® Magazine’s Good Neighbor Awards. Liberty Mutual has been a REALTOR Benefits® Partner for more than a decade, serving as NAR’s exclusive partner for auto, home, and renters insurance. Liberty Mutual is one of the world’s leading and most trusted insurance carriers. For more than 100 years, its mission has been to provide comprehensive, quality insurance products that help its customers live safer, more secure lives. Realtor.com® delivers consumer real estate’s largest and most accurate database of homes for sale and rent available anywhere. The home and rental listings on realtor.com® and realtor.com® mobile apps are pulled directly from over 800 local MLSs, with most listings updated every 15 minutes. Plus, realtor.com® has a huge database of property values for millions of homes nationwide and is the only national site that offers a complete database of over 1 million REALTORS®.
Our 2014 Judges
Kimberly A. Allard-Moccia, AHWD, e-PRO, GREEN, GRI, NAR Member Communications Committee chair; Martin Edwards, ALC, CCIM, NAR past president; Patti E. Lawton, CRS, e-PRO, GRI, SFR, SRES, NAR Housing Opportunity Committee chair; Robert Maloney, senior vice president–affinity marketing, Liberty Mutual Insurance; Michael C. McGrew, CRB, CRS, NAR treasurer; Barbara O’Connor, former chief marketing officer, Move Inc.; Beth L. Peerce, NAR vice president; Chris Polychron, CRS, GRI, NAR president-elect