It's About Community... And Brunch

Most Real Estate Agents will spend time talking to you about your neighborhood or your community. That's our job - to know the neighborhoods and to help you find not just a house, but a home. When you think about it, that's really a tall order. If you take a minute and search the internet there is a ton of poetry, essays and commentary about what makes a house a home.

Depending on who you read or what your particular bent is, homes are made by having our families in them, by having the lawn and landscaping be perfect, by decorating and entertaining or by the community itself - whether we all go to the same church, like the same sports team or maybe just that we can go next door and borrow a rake or a shovel, a cup of sugar or a serving dish when we need one. No matter which of the many things make you think of your house as a home, it all means having a place where we help make the lives of the people around us better.

Richard, Chris and Keira

On Saturday I got to have brunch at La Taza in Belmont with a few of the people who help make me feel like I am home. They are an incredible bunch who have one thing in common - they all participate in a bicycle ride that covers about 425 miles between Burlington, VT and Portland, ME every year in August. And they have been doing it for over a decade. The ride is called the Charity Treks Ride and details can be found at www.charitytreks.org.

Steve "Wonderdog"

Charity Treks' first ride was in 2002 when a group of people came together to raise money by riding bicycles and raising money to help fund research by the UCLA AIDS Institute and the Emory Vaccine Center that brings us closer each year to finding a vaccine for HIV. They come from all walks of life and all across the country. Richard is from Sacramento. Mark, Aims, Kat, Peter and Chris are from here in Charlottesville, Steve is from Montana. Over the years, along with a few hundred of others, we have ridden literally thousands of miles together and raised over a million dollars that have gone on to provide seed grants to researchers who have leveraged that money into tens of millions of dollars in funding from NIH and other groups - all towards a cure for a pandemic that no continent, no race - no neighborhood - has managed to hide from.

There is no way to explain the sense of family we have built in a short blog posting. They are not necessarily my neighbors but the group has formed many bonds over the decade+ that we have all spent time on the road together; and though no one comes knocking on your tent flap asking for a cup of sugar or to borrow a rake (yes, we camp for the five days it takes to bicycle that far) there is plenty of sharing and being a small, mobile community whose goal is to make the world a little better, a little easier to smile in, a little less scary. And that isn't what community really is about anyways? We find it surrounded by people that we both expect and surprise us, in ways both common and unique, but in the end, we all find it when we set out to make a difference and find that there are others who want to make a difference too.

I am riding in August to support research into a Vaccine against HIV, if you would like to support me in this cause, CLICK HERE
My goal this year is to raise $5000 - I have $4300 dollars to go!

And since I am still a Real Estate Agent,
Click Here to See homes for Sale in Belmont
Click Here to See homes for Sale in Charlottesville

Quinton Beckham
Keller Williams Realty
434.242.6212
www.select-homes-charlottesville.com