For an overcrowded shelter, the difference between an animal finding a home and running out of time can come down to how far a single post travels. That’s the gap Kristi Anderson works to close.

Kristi brings the same energy to her community work that she brings to her production numbers. Alongside a strong sales year, she uses her platform to support animal rescue causes, regularly amplifying urgent cases for dogs and other animals in need of fosters, adopters, or public support. When a shelter posts that a dog is facing a euthanasia deadline because space has run out, that post doesn’t stay contained to the shelter’s small following for long, Kristi shares it, and so does her network after her.

Her posts cover a range of situations: dogs facing those deadlines at overcrowded shelters, animals in urgent need of foster placement before a transport window closes, and calls to action on animal cruelty cases that need public pressure to move forward. Small rescue organizations often don’t have the reach to get an urgent case in front of enough eyes on their own. By consistently sharing these causes with her network, Kristi extends that reach at the exact moments it matters most, when time, not funding, is the thing running out.

For Kristi, this isn’t separate from who she is as an agent. She shows up for her clients and for causes she cares about with the same consistency, closing deals while also making room, post after post, to advocate for animals who don’t have another voice.

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We nominate someone who gives back. BHGRE Green Team is proud to recognize agents like Carol Buchanan whose commitment to community reaches far beyond real estate. Know an agent making a difference? Reach out to talent@greenteamrealty.com

Patrick Taylor Has Reached the Cap

Another milestone to celebrate at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Green Team: Patrick Taylor has officially capped in August 2026! From this point forward, every commission he earns is 100% his, no splits, no deductions. It is the kind of result that comes from sustained, disciplined work over time.

Patrick has built his business on follow-through. Whether he is walking a buyer through a competitive offer or helping a seller position their home for the right outcome, he brings the same level of preparation and attention to every transaction. Clients notice, and they come back, or send someone else his way.

🌱 What Reaching the Cap Really Means

At BHGRE Green Team, the cap is not just a number. It is the point where an agent’s track record starts to speak for itself. Getting here means showing up consistently, closing deals the right way, and earning the kind of trust that keeps a business growing year after year. For Patrick, this milestone is the product of exactly that kind of steady, deliberate work.

🗣 Patrick’s Words of Gratitude

Patrick Taylor shared his thoughts on reaching this milestone:

“Reaching my commission cap is a moment I’m proud of, but even more than that, it’s a reminder of how fortunate I am. To my clients: thank you for trusting me with one of the biggest decisions in your lives. To Better Homes and Gardens Green Team: thank you for the leadership, tools, and encouragement that help me serve at my best. Thank you to my clients for choosing me and to my brokerage for providing a platform where high performance thrives. This milestone is a team win, and I’m grateful for every part of it.”

👉 Thinking about what a career at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Green Team could look like for you? Find out more here.

Congratulations, Patrick! 💚 This one is well earned, and the whole Green Team is celebrating with you.

For Carol Buchanan, giving back isn’t an occasional gesture, it’s a sustained, twenty-year commitment that has shaped both her community and the next generation within her own family. For two decades, Carol has served as a volunteer driver for Meals on Wheels of Warwick, delivering meals to homebound neighbors week after week, year after year. That kind of consistency is rare, and it speaks to a depth of dedication that goes beyond a single donation or one-time event.

What makes Carol’s involvement especially meaningful is how she has turned her volunteer work into a teaching moment. She regularly brings her granddaughter Kylie along on her route, mentoring her in real time about what it means to give back. Kylie has become such a capable helper that Carol notes she could practically run her own route once she’s old enough to drive, a detail that captures something important: Carol isn’t just serving her community, she’s actively building the next generation of people who will serve it too. When Meals on Wheels of Warwick celebrated its 50th anniversary, Carol was there, celebrating alongside an organization she has personally supported for nearly half of its existence.

Carol’s community involvement extends well beyond a single cause. She has been a visible and consistent supporter of local initiatives led by organizations like the Warwick Lions Club, using her platform to recognize and amplify the people doing the work, from celebrating the years-long volunteer effort behind Warwick’s new Pump Track, a project that took sustained community organizing to bring to life and now gives local kids a place to ride and play, to spotlighting the Lions Club’s Pediatric Cancer Fundraising walk. In both cases, Carol made a point of publicly thanking the organizers by name, helping ensure their efforts were seen and valued by the wider community.

Carol shows up consistently for vulnerable neighbors through two decades of meal deliveries, invests in the future by mentoring the next generation of volunteers, and uses her voice to celebrate the community organizers around her. That combination of hands-on service, sustained time commitment, and genuine community advocacy is what this award is meant to recognize, not a single act of generosity, but an agent who has made giving back a core part of who she is.

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We nominate someone who gives back. BHGRE Green Team is proud to recognize agents like Carol Buchanan whose commitment to community reaches far beyond real estate. Know an agent making a difference? Reach out to talent@greenteamrealty.com

Thomas Folino spent 27 years coaching Warwick Boys Basketball and 37 years total coaching and teaching in the district. When he retired from the sideline, he did not step away from the program. He created a new role for himself, one that has now lasted longer than most coaching careers: director of the Warwick Boys Basketball Hall of Fame, a job he has held for 17 years.

A Committee of Mostly One

Tom runs the Hall of Fame largely on his own, with two longtime colleagues, including fellow agent and former coach Joe Mackey, helping evaluate nominations. Every year, he collects nominations, reviews candidates against the program’s criteria, orders the plaques, and writes a personal career synopsis for each inductee, digging through archives and gathering information himself rather than handing it off. He produces the printed program distributed at the ceremony, writes the press releases for local papers, updates the school website, and sends biannual emails to a running directory of every past inductee. The induction ceremony itself happens once a year, typically in January or February, at a home varsity basketball game.

A History of Turning a Tournament Into Real Help

Long before the Hall of Fame, Tom was already finding ways to give back through the game. As head coach, he ran an annual holiday tournament called Coaches Versus Cancer, raising two to three thousand dollars a year for the American Cancer Society. In his final four seasons, he reshaped it into Coaches for Community, redirecting the funds closer to home. One of those years, a Warwick family who lost their house to a fire received a $2,000 check from the tournament to help cover costs while their home was rebuilt.

Making Sure the Effort Mattered

For Tom, the Hall of Fame is not about nostalgia. It is about making sure former players know their years on the team meant something, and that current players watching the ceremony see what hard work and integrity actually look like over time. In 2017, the roles reversed for a night: Tom himself was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a coach, a recognition he did not find out about until the night it happened.

Nearly two decades after stepping onto the Warwick sideline for the first time, Tom is still finding new ways to give back to the community that shaped his career, now from behind a folder of nomination forms instead of a clipboard.

We nominate someone who gives back. BHGRE Green Team is proud to recognize agents like Thomas Folino whose commitment to community reaches far beyond real estate. Know an agent making a difference? Reach out to talent@greenteamrealty.com

A Foster Home, Not a Forever Home: How Rachel Marko Gives Dogs Their Next Chance

For about seven years, Rachel Marko has opened her home to dogs that have nowhere else to go. As a foster volunteer with Southern Paws, a local dog rescue, she has taken in dog after dog, not to keep them, but to get them ready for the family that will.

It started before Rachel had even met the dog who would change how she fosters. Arya came into her life during the first week of COVID, adopted sight unseen after another family’s plans fell through. Rachel didn’t get to meet her in person until she was already home. That leap of faith turned into a permanent bond, and these days it also shapes how often Rachel fosters. Arya prefers being the only dog in the house, so what used to be frequent fostering is now once or twice a year.

Where the Dogs Come From

Many of the dogs that land at Southern Paws travel a long way to get there. They come up from the southern United States, where free-roaming, unspayed, and unneutered dogs lead to litter after litter of puppies with nowhere to go. By the time they reach Rachel, they have already survived the hardest part. What they need next is visibility, structure, and someone willing to put in the work of getting them adoption-ready.

A Full-Time Job for a Few Weeks at a Time

Foster dogs are almost always high-energy, so a lot of Rachel’s time goes into exercise, often letting them run loose in her fenced yard until they finally settle. She brings them along wherever she can, not for convenience, but because every extra set of eyes on a foster dog is one more chance someone falls in love with them.

It is not simple work. New feeding schedules, vet visits, house-training a dog that has never lived indoors, managing a foster’s energy around her own pets. But Rachel has learned to see the hard parts as short-term. The dog in her house today will not be there in a month. That is the point.

The Reward Is in the Goodbye

Ask Rachel what makes seven years of fostering worth it, and it is not a single moment. It is the pattern repeating itself: a dog arrives unsure and overwhelmed, and a few weeks later leaves for a home that will keep it. She and her family have learned to be happy on the day a foster dog goes, because it means the work did exactly what it was supposed to do.

That is the kind of giving back that rarely gets noticed from the outside. No ceremony, no headline, just a family that keeps saying yes when a rescue needs somewhere for a dog to land.

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We nominate someone who gives back. BHGRE Green Team is proud to recognize agents like Rachel Marko whose commitment to community reaches far beyond real estate. Know an agent making a difference? Reach out to talent@greenteamrealty.com

Delivering More Than Meals: Walter Ross’s Quiet Commitment to Community

For the last 25 years, Walter Ross has given his time to the Warwick Humane Society. Fifteen years ago, he added another route to his week: delivering meals to neighbors who need them. Between the two, Walter has spent a quarter century showing up for the people and animals of his community, without ever making it about himself.

A Route That Takes an Hour, Twice

A few times a week, Walter drives one of five or six Meals on Wheels routes, delivering food prepared by St. Anthony’s Kitchen to homes out toward Pine Island. The drive alone takes an hour each way. At the Humane Society, his time goes toward hands on care and repair work, whatever the shelter needs that week.

It adds up to a real commitment, but Walter doesn’t talk about it in terms of hours or miles. He talks about the people he meets along the way.

The Animals He Won’t Forget

Ask Walter what makes the work rewarding, and two animals come up right away.

There’s Rufus, a dog who needs a strong, capable handler. Rufus earned his reputation as an escape artist, resourceful enough that he was next in line to come off the shelter’s alarm system. Then there’s a dog who came in with a collapsed back leg and went through a couple of operations. She’s walking more now, and she does it as a genuinely happy dog, with no idea of everything she’s overcome.

“She doesn’t know what she’s gone through,” Walter says. “That’s what’s rewarding, seeing her get there.”

Why He Started, Why He Stayed

Walter didn’t set out to volunteer. His wife was already involved with the Humane Society, and he decided to join her. What started as a way to spend time together became something he kept doing on his own, long after the initial reason faded into the background.

His Advice for Anyone Thinking About It

“You’re part of the community,” Walter says. “Give back as much as you can. If you have the time to commit to it, do it.”

For Walter, that’s what 25 years of volunteering comes down to. Not recognition or reward, but the small, steady moments of connection, a meal delivered, a dog who trusts him, a neighbor who’s glad to see a familiar face at the door.

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We nominate someone who gives back. BHGRE Green Team is proud to recognize agents like Walter Ross whose commitment to community reaches far beyond real estate. Know an agent making a difference? Reach out to talent@greenteamrealty.com