How McKenzie Realty Is Helping Our Local Heroes

Over the past 6 years, Better Homes and Gardens McKenzie Realty and The Craig McKenzie Team, a Veteran owned business, have given back over $2 million dollars toward helping our local heroes through the Homes for Heroes program.

Homes for Heroes, Inc. is the largest nationwide network of affiliate real estate, mortgage, and local business specialists, who all work together to help heroes save money when buying a home. We have served 70 heroes and their families making our firm third in the entire nation for giving back to our heroes!

Who is a hero?

According to Homes for Heroes, heroes are:

Firefighters
EMS
Law Enforcement
Military (Active, Reserve, Retired, & Veterans)
Healthcare Professionals
Teachers

We focus our efforts on helping these heroes buy and sell their homes then give 25% of our Buyer Agent or Seller Agent commission directly back to them. This is our way to say thank you for all they do keeping our communities safe, teaching our children, and ensuring our people are free and healthy.

We work with heroes in Oak Harbor, on Whidbey Island, NAS Whidbey Island and the surrounding communities of Anacortes and I-5 corridor. This program helps those communities by putting thousands of extra dollars in recipients’ pockets, and giving them the ability to spend more on their families and at local businesses small and large!

How Better Homes and Gardens McKenzie Realty is helping local heroes

To help bring more awareness to this amazing program, our firm has partnered with the Oak Harbor School district to advertise this program. We have donated over $20,000 for children’s uniforms and sports equipment as part of that partnership.

We also sponsor multiple events each year including:

1. Oak Harbor Back to School Event

We are the title sponsor for the annual Back to School event for teachers, staff and their families together with Guild Mortgage, our Homes for Heroes lender, and the Blue Fox Drive-In Movie Theater. This event provides a night to drive go-karts, play games in the arcade, have dinner, win prizes and watch a movie together at no cost to them.

2. Hero MAYnia

We also put on an annual Hero MAYnia event where we partner with Chick-fil-A and the Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce to provide FREE chicken sandwiches and swag bags for all our local heroes to come and enjoy lunch with us in May!

3. Hydros for Heroes

Lastly, we promote and put on the annual Hydros for Heroes charity hydroplane race. The net proceeds are donated to support local heroes and to fund scholarships for our future leaders in Oak Harbor. We have partnered with our entire community and NAS Whidbey Island to put on this free public event. As of 2021, this event has raised and donated over $145,000 and we hope to break the $170,000 mark by the end of 2023.

How you can help support local heroes

You can help by letting us help you buy or sell your home, volunteering or donating for the Hydros For Heroes event, or joining our firm and helping all our amazing Realtors make these programs and events even more impactful than they already are!