BY BETH CRAFTS, 4 SEASONS REALTY LLC
Choosing a charity for the Royal Palm Coast Realtor®
Association to sponsor annually is never an easy task. And
while most of the applicants who present their charities
can really tug at your heartstrings, the fact that Valerie’s
House in Fort Myers was a local “grassroots” organization
that helped children and clearly needed some financial
support made it perhaps a little easier to choose.
that Angela realized she needed to confront her sorrow.
“Friends in my dorm were always calling their moms,
talking to them daily and I realized I really needed to
grieve,” she says. Nevertheless, after college, she threw
herself into her work. As a reporter for an NBC affiliate in
West Palm Beach, she learned about Hearts and Hope,
another non-profit organization that provides support for
grieving families. She partook in the program and a seed
“We really appreciate the Royal Palm Coast Realtor® was planted for Valerie’s house, but the timing wasn’t right
Association taking us under their wing this year,” says she says.
Angela Melvin, founder and President of Valerie’s House.
“It’s a huge network of Realtors® and I just know that they Fast forward to 2013, when Angela moved back to Fort
are going to be instrumental in helping us grow.”
Myers to “regroup” her life and be with her family who
still lived in the area. She took a job with Fox 4 as a traffic
Valerie’s house was founded in 2016 to provide emotional anchor and volunteered her time with various non-profit
support to children and their families who are grieving the organizations.
loss of a loved one. But despite its recent inception, the
idea was a long time coming for Angela. Back in 1987, at The idea of starting a non-profit organization like Hearts
the age of 10, grief struck suddenly for her family when and Hope came to fruition simply by modeling Valerie’s
her mother died in a car accident in Fort Myers. “We all House after their program and getting kids together for
grieved in silence,” she says, referring to her then 8-year- group support at no cost to their families. They opened
old sister and 31-year-old father. “After the funeral, no Valerie’s House, named after her mother, in January 2016
one said anything to each other. Life went on.” And even with 20 children. Today, a little over a year later, they have
though her Dad remarried two years later to someone 105 children in the program meeting in the house they
she calls “an amazing woman,” she still felt a loss that she rent on Avalon Place in Fort Myers. They also hold satellite
could not and did not share.
meetings at Cape Coral Christian Church and The Village
School in Naples where they gather twice a month for
It wasn’t until 2009, when she was a freshman in college families who can’t make it to Fort Myers.
18 RPCRA.ORG | MAY/JUN 2017