From left, Select Realty agents Darlene Martin and Elise Crossman stand with the Marquette Maurices store leader Amy Burdick as Martin and Crossman donate $250 to the Maurices Giving Tree. (Journal photo by Antonio Anderson)

MARQUETTE – Maurices, a fashion store located at the Westwood Mall in Marquette, has set up a Giving Tree to help provide for underprivileged girls across Marquette County school districts. This Giving Tree has inspired other Maurices stores in Wisconsin and across the Upper Peninsula to do the same, and has brought out other charitable organizations from the store’s home in Marquette.

The store leader at the Marquette Maurices location, Amy Burdick, came up with the idea.

“On one of my conference calls I was asked to bring it up,” said Burdick. “Now a few stores in Wisconsin are doing it, and so are a few more stores in the Upper Peninsula. We started a whole little thing here at Maurices.”

The Giving Tree is adorned with tags specifying a list of the clothes and sizes each girl wants. Those looking to help out the schoolgirls can buy select items from the list, or the entire thing.

“This is our second year doing this,” said Burdick. “Before I came back to retail, I worked with schools by doing data for the state (of Michigan). So I learned a lot about 502s in the school and how there are a lot of children in the schools that are underprivileged. So last year we decided to do a Giving Tree, and I just reached out to the (school) counselors that I know in our school district and they gave me names.”

The Giving Tree helps girls from elementary school all the way up to high school, with the majority of them in grades 5 through 12.

“Last year we were able to help 23 girls, and this year we have over 50 on the tree,” Burdick said. “We end up wrapping them all and the counselors all come and pick them up, call each of the students individually, then the student gets to unwrap and take them home.”

This year Maurices completed all of the tags, and helped provide clothes for 50 children, thanks to the people and groups that donated money to help these girls.

One of the groups that donated was Select Realty. Select Realty did so while simultaneously doing its own festive charity event, the 12 Days of Giving initiative.

“Last year, I realized we donated to at least 12 different causes, so I decided to launch a new marketing initiative for Select Realty called 12 Days of Giving with Select Realty, which will run all the way up to Dec. 25,” said Select Realty marketing manager and real estate agent Elise Crossman. “This is our second year doing this initiative. We hope it raises awareness for these groups and urges other people to donate back to their community. For the first day of giving, we’re supporting the Giving Tree at Maurices. We’ve donated full outfits for four girls, and shoes for two more, totaling a $250 donation.”

The money used for the 12 Days of Giving comes from Select Realty’s Community Fund. Each real estate agent participates in supplying the fund, which originally started to help victims of house fires but has since grown enough to supply more.

“So whenever we sell a house, we each donate so much of our commission check to put into what we call our community fund,” said Select Realty associate broker and past owner Darlene Martin. “We also work at the Haunted Hayride so the money that we get from the Haunted Hayride goes into our community fund.”

“This fund helps us donate to many local organizations and events throughout the year. Darlene and I took on the Maurices Giving Tree but all the agents are a part of one of the days, this is company-wide from all the agents at Select Realty,” Crossman said. “Other places we are donating to are Alger County Food Shelter, Jacobetti Home of the Veterans, Button Up Project, Up North Lodge — Operation Great Christmas, Rock the Socks, Seasons of Sharing in Big Bay, Teaching Family Homes, Great Lakes Recovery, UPAWS and so on.”

Antonio Anderson can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 550. His email address is aanderson@miningjournal.net.