This is the third year that I have done a Cereal Drive for the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home located here in Brentwood, Tennessee.
My farm area is about 900 houses and I send them a letter, postcard this year, reminding them to put it out on the front porch for us to pick up. Pick up date was yesterday with today as the "Rain Day" backup. Of course it rained both days. Go figure. So we canvased the neighborhood BOTH days looking for boxes of cereal.
I have a closing Friday that the Buyer decided to go VA instead of conventional. No problem. Except that last Friday the Appraiser tells me that since Sewer is available, the house has to be hooked up to it. No small feat in 7 days. Somehow on Saturday I was able to locate a local fellow who said he could get the job done.
I met him there yesterday, discussed the process and then went to pick up Cereal. Filled the car.
I met him again this morning with the BackHoe. He wanted me to stick around to make sure we could find the Septic. He found it, busted the plastic clean out pipe, said not to worry he'd find the tank and take care of everything.
It had stopped raining so I called my friend Lee and we got started picking up cereal again. About lunch time I was curious and ran back over there to see how things were coming.
He had this HUGE hole in the lower back yard. Rock everywhere. He said that he couldn't find the "hookup". Hmmmm. But Not to Worry, He'd find it. Hmmmmmmmmm. 
Back to Important things...
We finished picking up Cereal and went off to deliver it to the Childrens' Home. This is Jerry. He and his wife Carol have been house parents for over 25 years. They have raised their own children here at the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home and their grandchildren spend a lot of their free time there with their grandparents and the other families.
I have to tell you, this is an incredible organization. They have 7 houses that will house one set of house parents and up to 8 kids. These houses are just like the house you and I grew up in, OR better. 2 kids to a room. 2 rooms to a bathroom. Large Kitchen, Dining and Family rooms. The kids go to public schools (Brentwood schools are some of the Best in Tennessee). If the kids want to go to college, they send them. If they don't want to go to college, but aren't ready to go out on their own, they have apartment like housing there so that they can transition into the work force.
They get almost all of their food from Second Harvest. Never enough cereal. Much of the clothing and toiletries are donated. The house parents earn about $11,000/year each and both work on the property. They are missionaries here at home. No other way to discribe their devotion to these children and the life they have chosen. I am honored to get to volunteer there.
I don't know if Charlie can get that pipe laid in time to close tomorrow or not. I still haven't heard anything about the offer I wrote yesterday. It wasn't even a bad offer. Oh well. I've had a GREAT Day!
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Connie Harveyis a local agent with Prudential Woodmont Realty, serving home buyers and sellers in Nashville, TN, Brentwood TN, and Franklin TN. Let her help you realize your Real Estate goals.
Connie can be reached at 615-661-7800 x 1300 or at HarveyC@realtracs.
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