The directors of the REALTORS® Relief Foundation granted $100,000 yesterday to the Louisiana REALTORS® Association Relief Fund in order to assist with relief efforts in that state following the damage and flooding caused by Hurricane Isaac late last week.

The Louisiana REALTORS® Association Relief Fund will use that money to provide assistance to REALTORS® and local associations impacted by the storm. At least four local board offices were directly affected by the storms.

“The REALTORS® Relief Foundation is there to support people in times of disaster in the places they call home,” RRF President Martin Edwards says. “That’s our mission.”

Louisiana Association of REALTORS® CEO Malcolm Young, who toured some of the affected areas with 2012 NAR President Moe Veissi yesterday, says the extent of the damage caused by the storms was largely unanticipated. Twenty-seven parishes in the state have been declared flood zones so far, and thirty REALTORS® in a single local board were flooded out, he adds.

“This flood was unexpected,” he says. “People literally got out of there with just the clothes on their backs. Thank God for NAR. We are so thrilled that they’ve come through with this grant.”

The Louisiana Association of REALTORS® has emergency information and a disaster relief application posted on its Web site, with a maximum grant per applicant of $2,500. The state association has a review group made up of staff and members who will administer the process to review and approve applications that meet the criteria. Association staff will issue the check grants, and the plan is to have local board officers personally distribute the checks to recipients.

With this donation, the RRF has given a total of $121,450 to disaster efforts in 2012. Over its 11-year history, it has given $22.7 million to a total of 35 disaster relief efforts, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

—Brian Summerfield, REALTOR® Magazine

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A Legacy of Giving