Real People: Agent’s Bow Wow Bash delivers
Janice Breau of JLA Realty’s Katy office brings her passions for real estate and dogs under one woof. Her website www.under1woof.com showcases her listings, her own dogs Tucker and Gizmo and a “pet of the month” waiting for a home at the Friends for Life shelter.
Last Saturday she and her friend Carey Handley brought together several hundred people and an enthusiastic contingent of their four-legged friends for a fundraiser for Special Pals at the Cane Island Amenity Village in Katy, which featured mini-training classes, a canine parade and fashion show, food, drinks and more. She recruited sponsors Page by Page Graphic Design, No Label Brewery and the Katy Community Chip Clinic to help deliver the big day.
Last year Breau hosted a smaller-scale event at Cane Island for Special Pals.
“My husband and I ... have a real passion for the welfare of every dog,” Breau said. “It breaks my heart to see any animal abandoned or abused.”
They monitor the various pet-adoption sites and do all they possibility can to help find foster and forever homes for the dogs — even finding a home for a pup they had fostered.
“It is animal instinct. You can’t get discouraged,” she said. “They need us.” Anyone who has met the unique and spectacular Maylis
Curie, an agent at Bernstein Realty, would recognize that celebrating her recent birthday is no ordinary occasion. Her colleague Aurore Artus accepted the challenge by calling on her artistic inspiration to immortalize her friend … in a melon. Like Maylis, Artus was born in France and took an interesting path to Houston real estate. These days her passion is helping expats (and others) settle into Houston, whether it’s showing them how to get a driver’s license, find a good baguette — or buy a new home. John Daugherty, Realtors agent Chris Foster recently joined the board of director of Bennett’s Bears after several years of service — and takes his obligation to brightening the lives of hospitalized children seriously. After leading a holiday campaign to gather more than 2,500 bears for children in eight area hospitals, he’s already hard at work on a Valentine’s Day campaign.
The Houston-based non-profit was by the family of Bennett Nester shortly after the then-18-month-old began treatment for brain cancer over the Christmas holiday of 2011. A pair of sisters gave Bennett a Build-A-Bear in memory of their brother.
The family vowed to do the same for others. By 2013 they had donated more than 950 bears.
••• Coldwell Banker United, Realtors Champions office associates Juan Briseno, Sherri Brown, Jennifer Carnahan, Crista Johnson, and Sunbelt Lending’s William Reeves recently participated in National Spruce-Up Day — an opportunity for Realtors to come together to clean up, renovate or improve the overall appearance of a local neighborhood as well as help residents who may lack the funds or the ability to make these changes on their own. The team donated their time to help a Candlelighters family.
••• One of the newest agents at Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Real Estate brings spices up the team with her experience as a chili cook-off champ. Amy Yoder and her husband Randy competed in the Bridgeland Chili Cook-off in Cy-Fair, taking a third place overall — and the People’s Choice award.
Judi Griggs is a writer who lives in Houston in the winter and Buffalo in the summer — because the reverse would be ridiculous. Contact her at realnewshouston@gmail.com or through judigriggs.com.