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Realtors' Group Donates $3,000 To Carmel Drug Crisis Organization

CARMEL, N.Y. -- A Carmel-based nonprofit that aims to battle substance abuse recently got a financial boost from a Realtors association.

Carol Christiansen, left, and Susan Salomone, co-founders of Drug Crisis in Our Backyard, hold photos of the sons they lost to drug addiction. Lin Crispinelli of Hudson Gateway Association of REALTORS®, displays a facsimile of the $3,000 check.

Carol Christiansen, left, and Susan Salomone, co-founders of Drug Crisis in Our Backyard, hold photos of the sons they lost to drug addiction. Lin Crispinelli of Hudson Gateway Association of REALTORS®, displays a facsimile of the $3,000 check.

Photo Credit: Contributed

Drug Crisis in Our Backyard was presented with a $3,000 donation by the charitable arm of White Plains’s Hudson Gateway Association of REALTORS®.

DCOB was formed in 2012 by Susan and Steven Salomone of Mahopac and Carol and Lou Christiansen of Somers after both couples lost a son to drug abuse.

The Salomone's 29-year-old son, Justin, died in 2012 after a long battle with addiction to pain pills and heroin, the same year the Christiansen's 23-year-old son, Erik, also died of an apparent overdose.

Erik Christiansen was a New York City police detective. His father, Lou, succumbed to brain cancer three years later.

According to the organization’s mission statement, it promotes awareness about drug use, helps addicted and at-risk individuals and their families, and implements measures, including legislation that holds accountable organizations and medical institutions that perpetuate drug use through over-prescription of opiates and other drugs.

It serves people in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties.

Co-founder Carol Christiansen said the money will be used to launch a new early intervention program that targets 12- through 18-year-olds.

Christiansen owns Café Realty, a real estate brokerage in Mount Kisco.

The Realtors association held a “Monte Carlo Night Gala” last September at the Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle that raised more than $30,000 for charity.

It has distributed the money to 16 other Hudson Valley charities and nonprofits.

For more information or to apply for funding from the Hudson Gateway REALTOR® Foundation, visit its website, www.hgrealtorfoundation.com.

The Hudson Gateway Association of REALTORS® is a not-for-profit trade association covering over 10,300 real estate professionals doing business in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange counties.

For more information about DCOB, call (845) 842-1212, or click here.

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