Wow! What an experience. Thirty-one REALTORS®  from all over Illinois including all of our IAR leadership team spent a whole day last week working on a Habitat for Humanity home on America Street in East New Orleans. Along with a dozen more REALTORS® from Austin, Texas, we put cement board siding on three sides of the house, worked on the front porch and prepared the inside of the house for drywall.

It was a very rewarding experience for us and very beneficial to Habitat. The full-time Habitat leaders said we saved them four days of normal progress.

While the project was very rewarding, most of us found it a little depressing that there were still many homes in that area which are boarded up and unoccupied. It has been five years now since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and life is a long way from being back to normal for many of these people. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done.

Being able to be involved in projects like this one makes me proud to be a REALTOR®, and especially proud to be part of the REALTOR® team from Illinois. I’m told we had the largest team of any state.

My thanks to everyone who participated and to the leadership team of the Illinois Association of REALTORS® for your concern for people and your willingness to make it all happen.