Realty Executives Exceptional Realtors® Agent Promotes Youth Heart Health Through National Association of REALTORS® Volunteering Works Program
“Leaders should influence others in such a way that it builds people up, encourages and edifies them so they can duplicate this attitude in others.”? Bob Goshen
Pictured from L - R: Doug Radford, President of Realty Executives Exceptional Realtors®; Kathy English, Branch Office Manager; John Walters, President of the Passaic County Board of Realtors®; Melissa Florance-Lynch, Branch Office Manager; Eric Drost, Branch Office Manager and Vice-President of the Deborah Hospital Foundation Greater Pompton Area Chapter and Sandy Rubolotta, Executive and President Deborah Hospital Foundation Greater Pompton Area Chapter.
True leaders inspire us to do great things. Matchup one successful leader with another and the possibilities are endless. This is exactly what the National Association of REALTORS® Volunteering Works award aims to achieve, as it annually awards grant money to select REALTORS® who work on small-scale charitable programs and connects them with a mentor who can help them amplify their efforts, often inspiring new goals and direction.
In 2015, Executive Sandy Rubolotta of Realty Executives Exceptional Realtors® Pompton Plains, in Pompton Plains, N.J., was just one of five national recipients to receive the 2015 Volunteering Works award for her work with the Deborah Hospital Foundation Greater Pompton Area Chapter. Deborah Hospital is a facility that treats patients regardless of their ability to pay.
As part of the award, Rubolotta was paired up with Dave Philp who has worked for decades with the Ridgeview Medical Center in western Minneapolis and brings extensive fundraising expertise to the mentoring relationship. As for the results?
“His words are clearly engraved in my memory and I think of them often. ‘Make your fundraisers into FRIENDRAISERS, and the funds will follow.’ This is my new philosophy,” Rubolotta says.
Rubolotta utilized the awarded funds to promote charitable events on social media and in other public outlets.
“We have promoted our events using our website, banners, posters, direct mailings and networking through our National Headquarters at the hospital. The director of support services has informed me that we are slowly becoming a regional chapter,” Rubolotta explains.
As a result, several new members have been referred to Rubolotta through neighboring chapters, and volunteers participating in local fundraisers have also joined the Greater Pompton Area Chapter. This has brought new energy and ideas to light.
One of which is the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Screening Program, a new project primarily for teens between the ages of 12 and 18. Sudden Cardiac Arrest takes the lives of 24 children per day in the target age group, and Rubolotta’s chapter is spearheading a major initiative to bring a team of Deborah’s cardiac specialists and specialized equipment up to North Jersey to make a difference. The goal is to kick the program off in 2017 and screen some 300 student athletes for free.
Those looking to support the Deborah Hospital Foundation don’t have to wait for next year to get involved.
“It has always been our goal to bring awareness of Deborah’s mission to North Jersey because the hospital’s offerings are largely known only to those below the Driscoll Bridge, although the free services are open to all. We are creating an ad journal, targeting support from businesses and professionals, to highlight the wonderful work of Deborah Heart and Lung Center and raise awareness of the screenings and other free programs,” Sandy explains.
The ad journal will debut on December 1, 2016, at the chapter’s Theater Gala 2016, which will be held at the Barn Theatre in Montville, N.J. Tickets for 9 to 5 The Musical based on the iconic movie of the same name are now available.
Having once been a grateful and unexpected recipient of Deborah’s services herself, Sandy Rubolotta takes great joy in knowing that her chapter’s efforts may be instrumental in preventing the untimely death of a young person. “My commitment to this wonderful and unique hospital is a lifelong mission,” she says.
