Jack White Real Estate company continues celebration of holiday season with seniors

PALMER — The Veterans and Pioneers Home here was packed Tuesday evening with senior residents and real estate agents, plus their children and grandchildren, for the 18th year in a row.

Local Christian singer/songwriter Adele Morgan opened this year’s Jack White Christmas party with some Christmas carols, soon joined by young children, seniors, Jack White staff, or all three groups at once. A couple children told jokes, a few created a “live nativity scene,” and finally, Santa Claus arrived to dole out the gifts.

Wasilla branch brokerage manager Paddy Coan said it just makes sense:

“We put people in houses, so we wanna be in the community.”

Coan said the Pioneers Home staff makes a wish list for each resident and sends the lists to Jack White. Each agent at the Wasilla branch receives one or two of those lists and shops for those individuals.

Jack White also donates a “big” gift to the home every year, such as the giant Christmas tree now standing in the atrium area, a chair for the in-home hair studio, noise-canceling headsets, pet supplies and veterinary services for residents’ furry friends, and even a karaoke machine. This year, the company donated two “sound bars” and extra speakers for those who are hard-of-hearing.

“We ask them, ‘what can we do for the community members of the home,” Coan said, in regard to the annual big gift. “It’s what they want, and what’s gonna make them more active and bring a smile to their face.”

But sometimes the licensees (agents) want to get to know their seniors a little better. Some Jack White staff members will go visit their seniors in the home and ask for more specific information to apply to the list — such as clothing sizes and favorite colors — and just to find out more about the person for whom they will purchase gifts.

“It’s very personal,” Coan said. “They get to see the movers and shakers in the Mat-Su (Valley).”

And for real estate agents, that’s pretty cool.

“For people that sell real estate, when you go (to the senior home), you meet people that were either colonists or (helped) form our communities,” Coan said. “They have streets or subdivisions named after them.”

Pioneers Home recreation aide Theresa Andersen said the Jack White party is “the really huge one” for their residents, though they do stay busy throughout the month with visits from the Palmer Lions Club, local elementary schools, Boy Scout troops and participants in various Colony Christmas events, among other activities.

“The residents love that Jack White party, it’s very special to them,” Andersen said. “It’s what they look forward to through the year.”

And it’s important to note that for some residents, Coan said, the Jack White party is their main Christmas celebration.

“We don’t just have a few people that show up, a lot of people bring their families,” she said. “Some kids started at 2 (years old) and now they’re in middle school and high school and still coming.”

The whole real estate agency-senior home Christmas party idea originated in Anchorage about 30 years ago, Coan said, though the company began more than 60 years ago, in 1953. Jack White also hosts a Christmas party at an Eagle River senior home, in addition to the Palmer home and the Anchorage Pioneer Home.

The list of Jack White’s community service partnerships continues on their website, with local, national and even global organizations mentioned, such as United Way, Relay for Life, and groups associated with food drives and highway clean-up.

Coan said she hopes people will see Jack White as more than the stereotypical real estate company.

“What we do is important but sometimes people think…it’s always about the money,” she said. “What I want my people at Jack White to be known for is being at the heart of the community.”

Coan said her employees “love what they do,” and that certainly helps.

“It’s not just selling houses,” she said. “We live here, we care. We’re helping grow our community and we want it to be the best community it can possibly be.”

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.