Pennsylvania real estate broker Dominic Cardone found himself knocking on the door of a neighbor he didn't know. The family hadn't told him they were looking to buy a property, nor were they looking to sell. This wasn't a typical door knock. In fact, Cardone wasn't there for business at all, and he wouldn't have been at this doorstep if not for a bee.
Just weeks earlier, Cardone says his neighbor Michael Horrocks had been installing a front walkway when he was stung. Cardone says Horrocks took some Benadryl, which meant a change of plans—the pilot wouldn't be able to fly his scheduled flight. Instead, he was rebooked to co-pilot a United Airlines flight from Boston. That plane became the one that struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Cardone had heard about his neighbor's death and knew that the National Association of REALTORS® had created a fund to defray housing costs for victims' families. The REALTORS® Housing Relief Fund was later renamed the REALTORS® Relief Foundation.
Cardone applied on behalf of the Horrocks family and arrived a few weeks later, check in hand. The pilot's widow, Miriam, answered the door.
"She immediately started crying," Cardone, CRS, SRES, a broker with Keller Williams Real Estate, says. "We hugged each other. I started crying."
He adds, "She expressed to me that this was the first check of any kind that she was receiving and that she couldn't believe how little red tape she had to go through to apply for and get the check."
Miriam Horrocks also told Cardone about the bee, he says. Men from the neighborhood stepped in to complete the walkway before her husband's funeral.
"That just shows what it means to live in a community of homeowners and what a beautiful thing neighbors can do for each other," Cardone says.
Looking back on his career achievements, the 20 minutes he spent with Miriam Horrocks stand out.
"The greatest day in the history of my real estate career was that day in October of 2001 when I delivered that REALTORS® Relief Foundation check," he says.
In all, RRF delivered $8.4 million to 1,321 families of people who lost their lives.
Delivering Hope During Devastating Loss
Linda Page, AHWD, SFR, broker of Fraleigh & Rakow Realty in New York, remembers how heartbreaking it was to deliver that first check. A young woman answered the door. Her husband had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial firm headquartered in the World Trade Center.
"They had just celebrated their first wedding anniversary on Sept. 10," Page recalls. "Her emotional loss was compounded by the uncertain financial future."
The woman took Page through her house and showed her photos. Page says the foundation's actions after 9/11, are one of the reasons she included an RRF donation in her estate planning.
"The fact that NAR is absorbing administrative costs has played a part in my decision, but mostly because real estate and NAR have been in my life for over 50 years,” she says. “I can’t think of a better way of giving back."
The response to the tragedy extended beyond New York City limits. Massachusetts broker Judy Moore, AHWD, remembers pairing up with another agent to deliver her batch of RRF relief checks near Boston. They relied on each other to carry the emotional toll.
Moore remembers the door opening to a house filled with grandparents and teenagers, and in the grip of mourning.
"The appreciation that they expressed to us in the midst of their grief is something I will never forget," Moore, with Barrett Sotheby's International Realty, says.
That gratitude lives on among NAR members and resonates in letters penned to REALTOR® associations in the months following 9/11.
"I know I still haven't felt the full impact of the loss of my husband and my children's father," one person wrote to the New Jersey Association of REALTORS® in 2001. "I feel the entire country, if not the whole world, grieving with us, as if we were their friends or relatives. It's the kindness of people like you that restores my faith in humanity."
