Several times throughout the year, our team gets out of the office and into our community to share time together putting our hands to work for those who need it the most. From Note in the Pocket to The Green Chair Project, we take special effort to pick a few organizations close to our hearts and really chip in both financially and physically multiple times throughout the year.
We have often helped volunteer on new move-in opportunities with participants of The Green Chair Project’s partner agencies, like CASA. This is work done in conjunction with the Realtor Foundation of Wake County, which our team leader Renee is a board member of, and as a result, always is happy to rally the HREG team to support liaison Heather Thompson’s work in creating these opportunities. In short, the Foundation sponsors the apartment then coordinates with The Green Chair Project and CASA, movers, etc. to make it as seamless as possible – right down to providing us with nails to hang pictures! 😊
(Bonus: We also get to do this with great vendor partners, too, like Steve and Stephanie, two of our long-time, go-to, fabulous lenders from Prime Lending.)
Meeting a New Friend for Life
We usually are part of the process prior to move-in and don’t get a chance to interact with the individuals or families who are benefiting from our efforts but during our recent February volunteer day with CASA, however, this one was a little different – we got the wonderful opportunity to meet Isaiah! He was so appreciative of our efforts and it made us even more grateful to be able to help furnish a safe and stable home for him this year. Our team is particularly mindful of our buyer and seller clients who are members of the military and at this particular CASA property, all of the residents here at disabled veterans.
“We love working within our community, our work wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of those we have encountered over the years. Normally, we furnish these apartments for anonymous individuals/families with limited information but this time we had the pleasure of working directly with Isaiah. I enjoyed seeing his excitement, his genuine appreciation, and being happy to have a place to call home. I left there feeling happy we have the ability to do such things and even better, we made a friend for life!” – Renee Hillman, HREG Team Leader
“We look forward to working with the HREG team and Heather each year to decorate a new home for a deserving family. It was especially rewarding this year to get to meet the person that was living in the apartment that we were furnishing. He also happened to be a veteran which made it even more special knowing that he served our country to protect the freedoms we have today.” – Stephanie Davis, Prime Lending
More About CASA
CASA’s mission is to provide access to stable, affordable housing for people who are homeless or at risk by developing and managing rental communities. Take a look at their impressive annual report and the impact they made in 2019 alone:
According to CASA, “between 130,000 and 200,000 vets go without a place to live on any given night, with over 150 experiencing homelessness in North Carolina’s Research Triangle alone.” In an effort to serve this population, CASA provides and manages affordable housing to veterans experiencing homelessness with several dedicated veteran housing units, as well as other veteran apartment options, across their properties. They specifically note that “many veterans are living with disability as a result of their service… and that… to meet the needs of these individuals, CASA provides individualized property management in our permanent supportive housing program. CASA is also happy to accept HUD-VASH and other vouchers to keep housing costs low for our tenants.” They’re currently providing this valuable service to over 100 local veterans.
We invite you to join us in learning more about their important work here in our local community at https://www.casanc.org/. One of the simplest ways you can support their work is by donating gently-used household furnishings via their partners at The Green Chair Project!