The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) announced its five Good Neighbor Awards winners for 2022.
As stated by NAR, the Good Neighbor Award has recognized REALTORS® who make an extraordinary impact on their communities through volunteer work for 23 years.
The 2022 Good Neighbor Award winners are as follows:
Jennifer Barnes, Keller Williams Realty Peachtree Road, Brookhaven, Georgia
Barnes thought in 2020 that she would feed people for just a few weeks until the COVID-19-induced shutdowns ended, however the experience opened her eyes to an underlying vulnerability beyond food and she founded the nonprofit, Solidarity Sandy Springs. The nonprofit has more than 2,600 volunteers providing wide-ranging community services for thousands of families, including free eye exams and glasses, flu vaccines, job fairs, back-to-school backpacks and more. Barnes has also distributed nearly one million pounds of food to approximately 46,000 shoppers.
Dennis Curtin, Legacy Investments, Kansas City, Missouri
Curtin founded Mimi’s Pantry to offer a more positive food pantry experience to people in need with their state-of-the-art, 6,000-square-foot facility. The nonprofit invested in commercial refrigeration equipment and offers fresh meat, produce and milk, and shoppers may browse the aisles and choose their food like a grocery store. It also has a play area and library for kids and is currently building a greenhouse and an orchard of fruit trees and berry bushes. In three years, it has served 50,000 individuals.
Jim Edmonds, Emerald Isle Properties, Kilauea, Hawaii
Edmonds, founder of nonprofit Permanently Affordable Living Kaua’i, partners with other nonprofits to build and convert affordable housing for workers. Edmonds navigates the complex challenges of poor infrastructure and resource scarcity through innovative, cost-saving solutions like solar energy, edible landscaping, shared electric vehicles and shared bicycles.
Heather Griesser LaPierre, RE/MAX Preferred Newtown Square, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
LaPierre founded Kids Against Hunger Philadelphia to address food insecurity both in her neighborhood and worldwide. Since 2015, she and hundreds of volunteers have packed and distributed more than 9 million nutritious, ready-to-make pasta and rice-based meals. When schools were shut down in 2021, she doubled production to 350,000 meals per month to ensure children who depended on school lunches were fed..
MaliVai Washington, Diamond Life Real Estate, Jacksonville Beach, Florida
Washington has been breaking the cycle of poverty for 26 years through a vibrant after-school mentoring program with the MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation (MWYF). MWYF serves 500 kids annually through a comprehensive youth development program of academic tutoring, leadership skills, financial training and fitness. The program has a 100% high school graduation rate, and the surrounding neighborhood’s dropout rate is 20%.
NAR President Leslie Rouda Smith said that she is “so proud to honor our Good Neighbor Award winners for how they’ve affected change to improve the lives of others in their communities. Each of these REALTORS® has devoted hundreds of hours a year and raised huge sums of money for their respective causes. I salute them for their vision, dedication, passion and selfless generosity.”
According to a release, each of the five winners–selected by a multi-stage, criteria-based judging process–will receive a $10,000 grant for their charity and be featured in the fall 2022 issue of REALTOR® Magazine. They will also be presented with crystal trophies on Nov. 12 during NAR NXT, NAR’s annual conference that will take place in Orlando, Florida this year.
NAR stated that in addition to the winners, the following five REALTORS® have been recognized as honorable mentions and will each receive $2,500 grants for their charity, three of whom also received additional grants from being voted a Web Choice Favorite on realtor.com®:
- Tamara “Tami” Hicks, Century 21 Signature Real Estate, Ames, Iowa, for Overflow Thrift Store, which has raised more than a half million dollars for charities and has saved millions of items from landfills.
- Lisa Hoeve, Coldwell Banker Woodland Schmidt, Holland, Michigan, for Hope Pkgs, which has provided overnight comfort bags to more than 4,200 foster children. She was also a Web Choice Favorite and will receive an additional $1,250 bonus donation.
- Debbie McCabe, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, REALTORS®, and the Trident Group, Devon, Pennsylvania, for Covenant House Pennsylvania, which houses and empowers young people facing homelessness.
- Debbie Miller, Webpro Realty, Lakeland, Florida, for kidsPACK, which feeds 3,000 children on weekends when they don’t get school lunch. She was also a Web Choice Favorite and will receive an additional $1,250 bonus donation.
- Kathy Opperman, Long & Foster Collegeville, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, for Pillars of Light and Love, which has offered 800 free workshops and support groups to build self-esteem and resilience in adults and kids. She was also a Web Choice Favorite and will receive an additional $2,500 bonus donation.
For more information visit www.nar.realtor/good-neighbor-awards.
