The Craig Association of Realtors recognized a Craig company Tuesday for putting local dollars back to work in the community.

Association members lauded Kevin Peck and Jeannie Thornberry — Northwest Title Co. president and co-owner, respectively — as major supporters of the Colorado Association of Realtors Housing Opportunity Foundation, which provides money for housing-related projects in the area and across the state.

Seventy percent of the money the foundation collects goes back to local organizations to fund housing-related projects, like the Moffat County Fuller Center for Housing, said Julie Bramer, Colorado Association of Realtors Foundations director. Another 15 percent goes to a state fund devoted to special projects and disaster relief, and the remainder pays for administration costs.

“It’s a good local program that keep monies here,” Peck said, adding that the program is “directed by people locally.

“Hopefully they can take advantage of it and help some people … that maybe don’t have other options” when it comes to housing.

Since January 2005, Northwest Title has donated more than $37,000 to the foundation, Bramer said.

Other local companies also contribute to the foundation, said Sari Cobb, Cornerstone Realty co-broker and co-owner, but Northwest Title has donated “far and above what any of us do.”

But, a sluggish housing market has made it difficult for the company to maintain such hefty contributions.

From October 2010 to September 2011, Northwest Title donated about $200 to the foundation.

The company’s contribution this year is “not what it has been in previous years just because things are slower and we’re not doing as many transactions,” Peck said.

Since the foundation’s inception, companies across Colorado have donated more than $7.3 million and “helped thousands and thousands of people,” Bramer said, from the homeless to residents who are trying to get their own homes.

And, these donations have “changed a lot of lives,” she added.

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