Realtors kick in over $5,000 for Boys and Girls Club

MOSES LAKE — A charitable project by the Moses Lake-Othello Board of Realtors resulted in a donation of more than $5,000 to the Moses Lake Boys and Girls Club.

Actually, by the time all the money comes in it might be $6,000 or more, said Mark Fancher, realty board president for 2016. Fancher presented a check for more than $5,000 to Boys and Girls Club director Brant Mayo and activities director Rachelle Lang at the board’s monthly meeting Thursday.

“That’s fantastic,” Mayo said as he looked at the check.

Fancher said he had received a $750 check on late Thursday afternoon, from some businesses that joined in the charitable project. More money could be coming in before the end of the year, he said.

The fundraiser ran from June 1 to Nov. 30. Realtors pledged $10 for each side of a transaction.

Each real estate transaction has both a seller and a buyer, he said, and the realtor board donated $10 for each seller, and $10 for each buyer, for every transaction closed through a realtor from June through November. Different real estate companies also came up with their own contests.

Back in June Fancher said he hoped to raise $5,000. But “I didn’t know what we would raise,” he said.

This was the first time the board of realtors came up with a group charitable project, he said. Different real estate offices do different charitable projects during the year.

“That (the money) is impactful for us,” Mayo said. Fall 2016 has been busy at the Boys and Girls Club at both its locations. The club moved into a new facility on Paxson Drive last year, next to Park Orchard Elementary, and operates a separate site at North Elementary.

“We’ve just seen an explosion of kids at our place,” Mayo said. The club has an after-school program, and during the fall there have been more than 300 kids per day between the two locations. During the last week there have been days when the two sites had more than 370 kids, Mayo said.