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For Immediate Release: NJAR® Presents Third Annual Good Neighbor AwardsSix NJAR® Members Honored for Service to Their Communities(Atlantic City, NJ) New Jersey Association of REALTORS® (NJAR®) President Mary Davis presented the third annual NJAR® Good Neighbor Awards during an award ceremony at the Triple Play REALTOR® Convention and Trade Expo today. Four REALTORS® and two REALTOR-ASSOCIATE®s were selected as NJAR® Good Neighbors for 2005. The NJAR® Good Neighbor Award recognizes those members who have made extraordinary commitments to improving the quality of life in their communities through volunteer community service. Each winner will receive a donation in his/her name to the organization he/she serves. The sponsors of the 2005 NJAR® Good Neighbor Award are Countrywide Home Loans, One Source Mortgage Corporation and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. "REALTORS® do more than sell homes. The Good Neighbor Awards gives us the chance to celebrate the special contributions of several members each year," said NJAR® President Mary Davis. "This year's recipients have shown a remarkable dedication to helping others. I congratulate each winner on the extraordinary success they have achieved in touching other people's lives. Thanks to our sponsors, Countrywide Home Loans, One Source Mortgage Corporation and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage we are able to honor the commitment of the Good Neighbor winners with a donation to each of their organizations." The first place winner of the 2005 NJAR® Good Neighbor Award is Patricia Malpere (Weichert, REALTORS® Mountain Lakes Office, Mountain Lakes, NJ). In 1998, Malpere founded the Extended Family Corporation to assist a friend diagnosed with leukemia who did not have medical insurance to cover a bone marrow transplant. Through an annual 5K "Walk to Remember" Extended Family Corporation raises funds to help one Morris County family each year who is struggling with financial hardship due to catastrophic illness or accident. Malpere served as the organization's president until May 2005; however, she continues to serve as a volunteer member. Under her leadership Extended Family Corporation helped eight families and raised over $200,000. A $2,500 donation will be made on Malpere's behalf to the Extended Family Corporation. Second place winner Donald Hallisey (Prudential New Jersey Properties, Hillsborough, NJ) will see a donation of $1,500 on his behalf go to the Cooperative Housing Corporation (CHC), a charitable organization that provides affordable shared living residences and services designed to meet the physical, social and psychological needs of low income older adults and adults with special needs. Hallisey began volunteering with the organization in 1998. The next year he joined the board of directors and is currently serving his second three-year term as president. In the fall of 2005, CHC celebrated the completion of its newest residence, a hospice house in Warren, NJ. At any given time, CHC provides housing for 35 people in a variety of shared living arrangements among its seven residences. Lisa Alper-Russo (Prudential Fox & Roach, Margate, NJ) is the third place winner. Alper-Russo began her involvement with Gilda's Club South Jersey at its inception three years ago. Gilda's Club is named for comedienne Gilda Radner, who died from ovarian cancer in 1989. The Club provides a homelike environment where people with cancer and their families join with others to build social and emotional support as a supplement to medical care. When the annual Gilda's Club Art Auction fund-raiser lost its sponsor one month before the event, Alper-Russo took on the challenge of planning the event, despite the fact that she has two small children, a busy business and was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Alper-Russo gathered her family, friends and associates to organize the auction, prepare an ad book, and solicit sponsorships for the event, which raised $68,000. A donation of $1,000 will be made on Alper-Russo's behalf to Gilda's Club South Jersey. Three special recognition awards of $500 each will be presented on behalf of Maureen Kurowski (RE/MAX Homeland REALTORS®, Freehold, NJ), Andrea Mesh (Century 21 Mack Morris Iris Lurie, Morganville, NJ) and Joan Oppenheimer (RE/MAX Fortune Properties, Englewood Cliffs, NJ). Kurowski volunteers at Freehold Area Open Door, a nonprofit food pantry, soup kitchen and referral agency. Each month Open Door serves 1,000 people in over 300 households. Kurowski works as a client advocate interviewing clients in financial crisis and administering the pantry's emergency fund to assist the most desperate clients. She also trains other volunteers, runs the annual holiday gift program, and serves as a trustee on the governing board. Kurowski was honored as Freehold Open Door's Volunteer of the Year in 2005. Mesh created Project SOS (Support Our Soldiers) shortly after the start of the war in Iraq. The mission of Project SOS is to improve the lives of the troops stationed abroad by sending needed items from home, helping families with morale and material support, and when troops return home showing them how much their fellow citizens appreciate their service with gift certificates from local businesses. From the warehouse in her garage Mesh coordinates shipments of personal care items, rosary beads, pen pal letters and other special requests to soldiers overseas. Oppenheimer began her involvement with New Jersey's largest private nonprofit child welfare agency, Youth Consultation Service (YCS), five years ago by attending programs at YCS schools and volunteering with the children at the Holley Child Care and Development Center. Since then, she has assisted with administrative work, served on numerous committees and joined the board of directors. Oppenheimer helped plan the agency's largest fund-raiser of the year, the Festival of Flavors, which raised almost $100,000 in November 2004. The New Jersey Association of REALTORS® is a non-profit organization serving the professional needs of approximately 52,000 REALTOR® and REALTOR-ASSOCIATE® members in the state. REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark which may be used only by real estate professionals who subscribe to the REALTOR® organization's strict Code of Ethics and are members of the National, State and Local REALTOR® organizations. # # #
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