Realtors honor 9/11 victims and families.

NEW YORK – Sept. 9, 2011 – As the nation honors the victims of 9/11 on the attack’s tenth anniversary, Realtors look back in sad remembrance but also with a certain pride for the way the Realtor family came together to help the victims’ families.

Within 24 hours of the attacks, the National Association of Realtors® created the Realtors Housing Relief Fund (RHRF) with a single goal: to make sure no families touched by the attacks lost a home. Within six days, it collected $1.7 million. The fund still exists today as the Realtors Relief Foundation.

“(Sept. 11) was our Pearl Harbor,” says 2001 NAR President-Elect Martin Edwards. “(NAR President Richard Mendenhall and I) agreed that Realtors were going to want to do something to help this country.”

Edwards and Mendenhall called in then Chief Financial Officer Dale Stinton and Frank Sibley, senior vice president of communications and convention. They reached out to the state associations affected by the terrorist attacks, and they created a mission: No family would lose its home as a result of the attacks. NAR would collect funds to help surviving family members pay their mortgage or rent for a defined period as they tried to get their lives in order.

The Realtors Housing Relief Fund officially launched on Sept. 12, 2001 – the day after the attacks – with 100 percent of all funds promised to surviving family members. NAR kicked off the fund with a $1 million donation, but money also poured in from local and state associations, and from individuals.

“I was the executive vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors on 9/11,” recalls Florida Realtors CEO John Fridlington as the staff took a moment to remember the tragedy. “Since two of the planes took off from Boston, we had local families directly impacted by the disaster. In the weeks that followed, Realtors hand-delivered relief fund checks to the victim’s families; I personally visited four homes. It was hard, but I’ve never been prouder of our Realtor family, nor more aware of the vital work America’s Realtors do for our nation’s homeowners.”

© 2011 Florida Realtors

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