Political Quotes

“Mr. President, each year, the 1.4 million members of the National Association of Realtors recognize five of their own with the Good Neighbor Award for their service to others, locally or globally. I am delighted to congratulate 2018 Good Neighbor Elias Thomas of Shapleigh, ME, for inspiring contributions from his hometown to some of the poorest villages in India. Mr. Thomas, broker-owner of EXIT Key Real Estate in Shapleigh, has spent 40 years volunteering with Rotary International. His compassionate work started with his local chapter, where he helped to build meditation gardens for those with mental illness and developed job and housing assistance programs for newly released prison inmates. His international efforts began in the late 1990s, when he travelled to Cozumel, Mexico, for a project to prevent the island's garbage dump from polluting the water system. In 2001, Mr. Thomas journeyed to India to assist in Rotary's signature project of preventing and eradicating polio. The deplorable living conditions and the gratitude of villagers for the Rotarians' assistance convinced him that India was where his energy and commitment were most needed. Mr. Thomas has returned to India every year since then, leading teams of volunteers and personally immunizing about 500 children against polio. He has raised $40,000 to help pay for the corrective surgeries of some 1,000 victims of the disease. Throughout his four decades as a Rotarian, Mr.…”