Article Contributed on: 2/13/2008 4:05:01 PM
Kay Jacobs, a highly regarded real estate professional and advocate for the world's underprivileged youth, has joined the top-producing team at RE/MAX Alliance in Parker following several years of missionary work in Honduras.
For a dozen years starting in 1989 within the RE/MAX system, Jacobs enjoyed a stellar career until 2001 when she and her husband elected to leave the trappings of success behind to help the poor and abandoned in a third world country through Youth For Christ, a missionary organization.
Her story is one of unselfish advocacy for the needy, and her charitable endeavors are life-changing by any measure.
Jacobs and her husband started their 3-1/2-year missionary odyssey in San Jose, Costa Rica where the couple learned Spanish while immersing themselves in the country's culture for a year.
Upon joining Youth For Christ, the Jacobs moved to San Pedro Sula, Honduras where Kay's husband recruited work teams to help build a youth camp in the mountains in an extremely poor area. Kay worked as an advocate for women and children who lived in extreme poverty.
"I volunteered in a public hospital in a neurosurgical unit where children with brain injuries or diseases came and usually died from lack of care and medicine," says Jacobs. "I found ways to get medicine for these babies and encouraged their mothers who were desperately poor. After one of the infants had brain surgery, she was sent home with a fever. I was in the States for a week and my husband contacted me about the child's condition. I returned immediately and went to the hospital where the child and her mother had been in the emergency room for five days without yet seeing a doctor. My husband and I scooped up the precious baby with her IV and took her to a private hospital where she had second emergency brain surgery. The damage to her brain, unfortunately, was already severe.
"After five days in the private hospital and a $4,000 credit card bill that we had no means of paying, we moved the baby back to the public hospital where I spent many hours over the next five months helping the young 16-year-old mother and other moms who needed an advocate. This is just one of many heart wrenching experiences we dealt with during our time in Honduras."
In addition to her work in the public hospital, Jacobs worked in several orphanages including an AIDS orphanage. Many children were severely malnourished, full of worms, and covered in lice.
Some were rescued from the streets of the city or simply abandoned because their parents could not care for them. With Jacobs involvement positive changes were subsequently made at the orphanage and the children were receiving better care when Kay and her husband returned to the United States in 2005.
Kay is now back in the RE/MAX organization as a broker associate with RE/MAX Alliance in Parker. She spent her first 12 years with RE/MAX before going to Honduras, and then the past two years with Coldwell Banker before returning to the company that provided a system and all the tools for success, which subsequently enabled Kay and her husband to help the needy in Honduras.
Kay Jacobs is a member of the Douglas Elbert Realtor Association and currently serves the diverse real estate needs of clients throughout Douglas County and surrounding areas. She is dedicated to helping her clients achieve their home ownership and other real estate goals under the RE/MAX system, which she believes is the best in the business.
Jacobs enjoys underwater photography, scuba diving, sailing, and traveling. Kay and her husband, Brian, hope to return to Honduras and Costa Rica periodically to help with short-term missionary endeavors.
For more information on real estate services from Kay Jacobs, phone 303-726-3000 (cell) or 303-841-0922, or contact Kay via e-mail at KayJacobs@remax.net.
Please visit Kay's Real Estate Web site
www.kayjacobs.com. To search for homes nationwide or if you would like to read more about her missionary adventures in Honduras.
For more information on RE/MAX Alliance, visit
www.HomesInColorado.com.