National Association of REALTORS Announces 2026 Good Neighbor Awards Winners: Five Charities Each Receive $10,000 Grants
The National Association of REALTORS (NAR) announced the five winners of its 2026 Good Neighbor Awards in Chicago on October 27. Now in its 27th year, the program honors NAR members who make an extraordinary difference in their communities by giving their time, money, goodwill and expertise to help others. The five winners, selected through a multistage, criteria-based judging process, will each receive a $10,000 grant and national media exposure for their charity.
The winners are Shawnee Doherty of Phoenix, Arizona (Hope Through Hollis Foundation); Sue Farrell of Richmond, Virginia (Boots to Suits); Weston Jenkins of Boerne, Texas (Disabled Outdoorsmen USA); Jay Miralles of Elkhorn, Nebraska (50 Mile March Foundation); and Teresa Renkenberger of Brandon, Mississippi (Shower Power). NAR President Kevin Brown said this year's winners saw a need in their communities and refused to look away, adding that their work shows REALTORS do far more than help people find a home: they help build the communities around it.
Doherty founded Hope Through Hollis with her husband after her 7-year-old son, Hollis, died of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an aggressive pediatric brain cancer; over the past decade she has built a network of DIPG families and foundations that has raised nearly $2 million for research at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. Farrell founded Boots to Suits in 2014 after her husband, a former Navy submarine officer, died; the Richmond program gives veterans complete professional outfits for job interviews and post-military careers, with volunteer tailors adjusting pant legs to fall correctly over prosthetic limbs, and has dressed 7,000 veterans across Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. Jenkins founded Disabled Outdoorsmen USA in 2017 to provide equipment, logistics and funding for people with disabilities to hunt, fish, camp and go off-roading; he has secured access to 28 private ranches in Texas, expanded into four other states, and raised more than $2.5 million to send nearly 290 people on more than 190 trips.
Miralles, who spent nearly a year homeless after leaving the Air Force, marked his 50th birthday in 2020 by walking 50 miles in 22 hours from Lincoln to Omaha with six friends, raising $25,000 for veteran causes. The 50 Mile March Foundation has since grown to 175 participants from 18 states, funded more than $800,000 in grants to veteran nonprofits, and purchased seven acres in Bellevue, Nebraska, for a planned campus offering transitional tiny homes, mental health and addiction recovery services and employment help. Renkenberger's Shower Power has run a mobile truck with two full shower units in downtown Jackson every Friday since 2019, serving roughly 160 people a week alongside hygiene kits, haircuts, clothing, food and pop-up medical clinics.
Five additional finalists were recognized as honorable mentions and will each receive $2,500 grants. In the public Web Choice Favorite vote, Miralles will receive an additional $2,500 donation, while Dylan de Bruin and Eustace Payne Jr. will each receive $1,250. The awards program is sponsored by Realtor.com.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：全美房地产经纪人协会（NAR）位于华盛顿特区 New Jersey 大道500号的总部大楼，玻璃幕墙上可见 REALTOR® 标志。照片：Tony Webster，CC BY 2.0（经 Wikimedia Commons） / The National Association of REALTORS headquarters at 500 New Jersey Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., with the REALTOR(R) mark visible on its glass facade. Photo: Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
