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Vice President of Sales and Marketing with Traton Homes, Amy Kessler, and Chairperson with Cobb Christmas, Mark Riggans, are in studio for today’s episode of Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio. Joined by co-hosts Carol Morgan and Todd Schnick, the group discusses the annual Cobb Christmas drive, who the organization helps, how to get involved and more on this Around Atlanta segment of Radio.
Traton Homes is a family-owned business founded in Cobb County in 1971 and will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2021. Traton Homes’ corporate office is located in Marietta, but the builder offers stunning new townhomes and single-family homes all around Cobb County and throughout the metro Atlanta area.
Cobb Christmas is one of the oldest nonprofits in Cobb County, dating back to 1963. With a goal of helping low-income and working families during the holiday season, Cobb Christmas provides gifts to children from one through 15 years of age. Each child receives at least three age-appropriate toys to celebrate the Christmas season.
Eligible families include low-income residents of Cobb County with children ages one to 15 who do not receive any other source of holiday assistance. Each family that participates is given an appointment to receive toys and food at the annual distribution. This distribution is manned by the hundreds of volunteers that help make Cobb Christmas possible.
With tasks including sorting and selecting food and toys for families, the volunteers are an integral piece in Cobb Christmas. The organization is completely run by volunteers, allowing a majority of all funds to go directly back to the Cobb County families in need.
Traton Homes has partnered with Cobb Christmas for over 15 years. To help support the organization, Traton Homes reaches out to its various partners, vendors, lenders, sales centers and other connections to collect monetary donations and toys. Traton then uses the donations earned to fill an entire Cobb County transit bus with toys to support Cobb Christmas. Over the years, Traton Homes has donated thousands of toys to the organization.
“Our home is here in Cobb County and we just love supporting the local community help raise money for this effort,” said Kessler.
In addition to creating a higher need this holiday season, the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has also changed the way Cobb Christmas operates. This year, a rigorous process is used to clean, sanitize and select all toys that come through the warehouse. In addition, volunteers are following several prescreening and social distancing protocols to purchase, sort and select toys.
“We operate on about a $35,000 budget each year,” said Riggans. “We buy a big portion of our toys in bulk, but we could not do it without our partners like Traton Homes. We buy the bulk, but they supply the stuffed animals, cars, trucks and other ‘one of’ things. That really brings it home for them [the kids].”
To learn more about Cobb Christmas and find out how to donate or volunteer, visit https://cobbchristmas.net. Also, be sure to listen to the full interview above.
To learn more about Traton Homes, visit www.tratonhomes.com or call 770-427-9064.
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Georgia Residential Mortgage Licensee, License #22564. NMLS ID #6606. Subject to borrower and property qualifications. Not all applicants will qualify. New American Funding, Traton Homes and Cobb Christmas are not associated. Click here to view the terms and conditions of the products mentioned during the show. Corporate office 14511 Myford Rd., Suite 100, Tustin, CA 92780. Phone: (800) 450-2010. (December/2020)
New American Funding is a family-owned mortgage lender with a servicing portfolio of over 123,000 loans for $30.4 billion, 198 branches, and about 3,100 employees. The company offers several niche loan products and has made Inc. 5000’s list of Fastest-Growing Companies in America six times. It has a state-of-the-art career training facility and develops innovative technology, including the GoGo LO mobile application. For more information, visit www.branch.newamericanfunding.com/Atlanta.
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