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Fort Meade Soldiers Inspire REALTOR Santas

With Fort George G. Meade just a few minutes and a few miles from our office, every agent at RE/MAX Vision counts relocating soldiers among our past clients. As we've introduced military personnel attached to Fort Meade to real estate in Crofton and other communities near the post, we've gotten to know them and their families on a personal level, as well as a professional one. We're so grateful to them for their service and very glad to have them as neighbors now.

Melissa Slye Inspired by clients who are Fort Meade soldiers, several of the agents in my office got together after our sales meeting on Tuesday to become "Santa for a Day" and stuff holiday gift bags for deployed troops.

Every gift bag is unique, but they all contain a book of puzzles, candy, hand sanitizer, pens, toothbrush and toothpaste, packs of band-aids, and a holiday card thanking them for service to our country. Other items in some of the stockings include socks, Clinique samples for the lady soldiers, note paper, dice and card games, inflatable beach balls, and a myriad of different personal grooming items.

In this photo, Melissa Slye added colorful tissue to top off each gift bag to help keep the contents in place during shipping. Pink tissue was used in bags for the ladies, as seen in the foreground. Melissa, Joan Fitzgibbons, and Faye Johnson joined me in this effort.

It was fun for us to be a "REALTOR Santa for a Day" and we sincerely hope our holiday gift bag reassures a deployed soldier that we appreciate his or her service and sacrifices, and that we remember him or her on Chrismas.

P.S. - For more information about this effort, visit Operation Christmas Stocking. It's not too late for you, your office, and your community organizations to participate.

Posted by Margaret Woda, Maryland Real Estate on 10/09/2008 11:06 AM

Comments (13)

Fort Meade Maryland in the Regional (Localism) Channel

fort meade, fort george g meade, remax vision, crofton maryland real estate, military relocation

Originally posted at: Fort Meade - USNA - Andrews AFB: Fort Meade Soldiers Inspire REALTOR Santas

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13 Comments on Fort Meade Soldiers Inspire REALTOR Santas

OCT

2008

You are a broker aren't you?? I can tell by your writing style perfectly. It is great to see some agents trying to make a difference in their communities!

Orange Park Florida Homes, Real Estate, and Realtors in Orange Park Florida

That's a great thing to do. Way to go! And thanks for sharing- I am going to check it out and plan an event in our office. It's our job to be supportive and appreciative of the soldiers and their sacrifices for our freedom!

Kind Regards, Nicole Weidauer

The Egerer & Weidauer Team, Keller Williams Realty North Seattle

It is nice to see something good for others. This can make us feel great when we do this. Sounds like a great idea to share.

What a great idea, Margaret -- We have a large military presence here. I will check out your link.

Margaret, We owe so much to the men and women who serve. It is heartwarming when any group, not on realtors, make an effort to remind them how much they are appreciated. I'm working with a knitting group here locally to knit the helmut warmers - it iss being sponsored by the Marine Museum at Quantico, Karen

Karen, That sounds like a worthwhile project for the soldiers and a fun project for the knitters.

Shirley, Even though this doesn't directly benefit the soldiers at Fort Meade, I think it's good for them to know their service is appreciated. Many of them have recently returned or will be deploying in the future.

Pat, Besides being a good project that benefits some good people, it's also a good bonding experience for the office at a time when it's easy to become disheartened by the market.

Nicole, Fed Ex will ship your gift bags or stockings to the warehouse - check out the website to find out the instructions for shipping. I used this project as an excuse to get in touch with former clients and many of them dropped off items for us to include. Even my lender participated.

Mike, No... not any more... but thank you for the compliment. 'Been there, done that, and now I'm always on the verge of retirement. LOL. But I probably never will.

Margaret,

This is a wonderful thing you're doing. Our armed forces don't get nearly as much positive feedback as they should. We took part in something similar to this several years ago and it was a great success. This surely will as well. I'ts great to see how people like you are giving back to our men and women in uniform. This should get featured as i have flagged it as such. Thanks again for sharing :) (P.S: sent you an email to clear up something)

Thanks, I got your email and hopefully replied - not sure if it went through, since I ended up with an error message. Hopefully it did.

And thanks for stopping by.

Your Welcome, Margaret, I did receive it. i felt compelled to respond back to make sure the air was cleared.

I hope your post gets featured now as to give more exposure to the great cause you are taking part in here. Thanks for your patronage to the troops. :)

Margaret, Good for you and your office for supporting the troops. We do something similar. It is so important that our troops and their families know they are in our hearts.

OCT

2008

Morning Margaret,

Great way to spend time and money. Our troups deserve all we can give the, prayer, support and gifts. The time and effort You and the others from your office spent to day will make many a happy service force happy and appreciated tomorrow.

An email from Operation Christmas Stocking:

You can ship to us using FedEx, who supports our efforts and provides us a small budget each year. We have this program as long as the budget holds up. You can ship to us via FedEx Express Saver their three day service. The account number to use is 373325848 and mark it bill recipient.

Our address for sending money is:

Operation Give
2363 Scenic Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah 84109

Our address for sending donated items is:

Mesa Systems, c/o Operation Give
2275 South 900 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84119.

Margaret,

I would like to personally Thank you Margaret and each of you for such a caring gesture! I am one of those Ft. Meade spouse's, as well as a mother of a son at Ft. Benning. While my husband was deployed, the kind acts of other's such as what all of you are doing is amazing and really makes a difference.

I stumbled across this by accident as I am a loan officer with Monarch Mortgage and have been looking to find Realtors in the area that I can work with and know that my clients will be taken care of. Many of the soldiers I am in contact with are looking for Realtors they can trust and know they will be taken care of, and I have to say you have shown me that we are very lucky to have a community of Realtors in the area such as yourself and others.

Sincerely,

Andrea Ulm

443-534-4574

aulm@monarchmtg.com

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