Photo provided Jessica Risacher, left, and Molly Sherman sort through donated coats at Hotel Indigo as they are sent to organizations.
A group of local Realtors from Jennings, Jackson and Bartholomew counties donated nearly 200 coats to people in need this week after taking part in an inagural tri-county youth coat drive.
The Crossroads Association of Realtors in Columbus’ Young Professionals Network (YPN), which launched last year, had hoped to collect 100 coats for local youth. What began in October culminated Thursday at Hotel Indigo where volunteers tabulated the count, which ended up at 190 coats, just as the holiday season is about to arrive.
Jessica Risacher, owner and broker at F.C. Tucker in Columbus, said those in the network sought to serve and build stronger connections with the surrounding community through the coat drive.
The main brokerages that were involved included Berkshire Hathaway, Weichert Realtors, F.C. Tucker, Keller Williams, Century 21 and RE/MAX Real Estate Professionals.
The group kept things competitive by keeping an internal count of how many coats each brokerage was able to gather, according to Risacher.
“We were advocates within our brokerages to just hype up everybody in our real estate companies to go out and collect coats,” she said
Calls on social media for donated coats led to drop-offs at individual real estate offices, but some donations came through purchases on an Amazon registry.
YPN members donated 50-some coats for youth each to Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., Seymour Community Schools and Jennings County School Corp.
Risacher said they were pleased to not only exceed their goal, but receive 21 adult coats and 17 toddler coats as well. Adult coats went to Brighter Days and the toddler coats were donated to Turning Point.
“What was surprising was the fact that we were able to bless other organizations as well, which we didn’t set out to do,” Risacher said. “We’re just proud of how our local agents, offices and community members stepped up.”
Risacher said they are hoping to continue the drive next year with the addition of hats, gloves and a community drop-off event.
“It’s fun to see that even though we’re all competitors within real estate companies, we’re all working together for the same cause.”
