Scott Dillingham: 00:21

Welcome back to today's show. I've got a really special guest today, and she's doing big things in the community to help out. Her name is Roxy. Some of you might know her as Roxy the realtor. She's been a real estate agent in WindRastix for quite some time now.

Scott Dillingham: 00:34

So welcome to the show, Roxy.

Roxi: 00:35

Hi, Scott.

Scott Dillingham: 00:36

How are you?

Roxi: 00:37

I'm good. Thank you. Oh, Scott. For having me.

Scott Dillingham: 00:39

Yeah. No problem. I'm so glad you're here today. So I'm curious. How did it start?

Scott Dillingham: 00:44

Could you tell me where your childhood because I know you do a lot with people in the community. But can you tell me about your childhood and did it stem from there or where did you grow? Start there.

Roxi: 00:53

I, do you know what? I think it was more when I was a teenager. Every girl loves to shop. I was a crazy couponer. I would collect coupons, go buy things super cheap and then donate them to different places.

Scott Dillingham: 01:04

Okay. That's awesome. So what gave you that idea? Did it just pop in your head or

Roxi: 01:10

I think everybody always needs a little bit of help sometime and we never know, if we're going to be that person.

Scott Dillingham: 01:16

Grew up in the UK. Right?

Roxi: 01:17

I did. What gave it away? I don't know.

Scott Dillingham: 01:19

It's actually the accent for sure. But, no, that's awesome. So what part of UK?

Roxi: 01:24

I'm from Cambridge in the UK. Okay. So the east.

Scott Dillingham: 01:27

That's awesome. And then how did you get here? How did that?

Roxi: 01:29

I followed my family. Okay. This knock I would love to give you, like, some amazing story of this craziness, but I literally my my parents and my brother and sister moved over. And after telling them for 6 years, I'm never ever going to move. I did.

Scott Dillingham: 01:44

And then you did. Thanks. And then do you ever miss it?

Roxi: 01:47

Do you know what? I wasn't missing it because I was going back, like, every summer for 3 weeks with my children, having an amazing time. Obviously, with COVID now, I've really missed it. It's been 2 year over 2 years since I've been home, and I really miss home now, especially because of everything that's so different about that with how they've dealt with COVID and everything like that.

Scott Dillingham: 02:06

Yeah. It's that mindset too when you know, like, you can't do something, you wanna do it more. So I hear you. Noam, I have family that was from the UK as well, but I've never been myself. It's just that's when I did a 23 and me test, and they said my whole heritage is from the UK.

Scott Dillingham: 02:21

So I'm from the UK too.

Roxi: 02:22

So you need to go visit.

Scott Dillingham: 02:23

There you go. There you go. No, that's great. So then you moved here. How old were you when you moved?

Roxi: 02:27

I was 25. Okay.

Scott Dillingham: 02:29

Perfect. And so when you moved here, did you start helping people in the community right away? Or how did that kind of

Roxi: 02:37

Still did the same thing. So transferred over a coupon here like crazy. We donate food and toiletries. And then when I had my children, it became so apparent to me that there were other children that were just not as blessed as mine. Like, mine, we're 15 minutes down the street that they didn't have a winter coat or my girlfriend was a teacher and she would have snacks for these kids that would turn up with no food, didn't have breakfast.

Roxi: 03:04

So I would help her a lot at her school do Christmas for her class. I could get them all a gift, do them a pizza party, that sort of thing, just because every child just as every child deserves to have a nice Christmas or a gift. I agree. Yeah. That that's where it started when I had my girls.

Roxi: 03:21

And so they've foregone birthday parties every year so that we take that money and we go buy Christmas gifts for a specific family.

Scott Dillingham: 03:29

Okay.

Roxi: 03:29

So we've been doing that for a long time. And then when COVID hit, my girlfriend messaged me and asked me if I want to be involved in something with her. I co admin a Facebook group, Caremongering Windsor Essex. So that goes, there was so much fearmongering, so we set up caremongering, how to love on your community, let love be your loudest voice. And that's not us caring for every single person in the community.

Roxi: 03:52

It's bringing the community together and having people care for one another, and that's what's been so amazing is to watch the community in Windsor. Like, somebody will be searching for something. And there was a time where you couldn't get flour or yeast or toilet rolls, and then they would go to their door and 10 people would have delivered a whole bunch of stuff.

Scott Dillingham: 04:13

That's awesome. Yeah.

Roxi: 04:13

So it's and I think that's just been huge for myself and my partner at work, Sean. K. We we've taken that last year as a brokerage. We did a big thing with collecting hats and gloves and scarves for the community, and we donated those to the homeless. And then this year, we're doing something a little bit different.

Scott Dillingham: 04:34

That's so rewarding too. We've done a lot of good stuff for people in the community as well. And it's really cool when you help out someone and they're not anticipating it and to see how excited they are. And I think that kinda makes it worth everything. Do you have an experience like that where you really help that one child or one person and it just made their world?

Roxi: 04:52

I think to be honest, like the mom most years, like I leave and I cry because they're crying. They're like so grateful that I take we take the list of the toys and the things that that their child wants. We get everything on that, And then we get them a winter coat. And it's just such a relief. As a parent, I can you do worry about your children, and you don't want them to be different for from any other child and you want them to have an amazing Christmas.

Roxi: 05:20

And, of course, like, keeping them warm and coats and things like that and food come first. But they also deserve to have the toys and have the Christmas that every other child has as well. And we see we're all, I'm sure, guilty of it at some point being totally over extravagant with our children. And even me this year, my children are like, we don't know what we wanna put on our Christmas list because that we know we have so much. It's the world that we live in.

Roxi: 05:45

So just to, yeah, I often leave in tears, just thinking at least we've given them like this one one great Christmas and hopefully they can build on it. And they do keep in contact with with the families and Yep. Throughout the year and check-in and make sure that they're doing okay. And

Scott Dillingham: 06:03

That's awesome. No. That's cool. Now for your kids, do you bring that in? Do they help you to deliver these

Roxi: 06:09

So they have done on occasion. It's great for them to see Yep. And to see other children and, yeah, they'll go in and play with the other kids as well. And it, you know, like I said, they forego that they've foregone their birthday party. So we go out together and we do all the gift wrapping and everything like that.

Scott Dillingham: 06:27

Oh, that's awesome. I remember there was this event called the Hamilton Basket Brigade. So they got addresses secretly of people that needed help. And, I brought my daughter. So she, I think she was around 4.

Scott Dillingham: 06:42

And what you do is you get into this, gym. It's like a church gym and you fill up all these baskets. And what we did is we fed all these families that needed like a Christmas dinner. So I helped them do that. My daughter came and donated some money.

Scott Dillingham: 06:56

But the cool thing that I didn't realize that happened from that is so to this day now, whenever she sees somebody that needs help, like someone on the street looking for money or whatever, she has that passion to help now because she's been there. She saw everybody helping and contributing, and now she wants to be a part of it too. So it really if you do with with your kids, I think it's so important because they get that desire to help others.

Roxi: 07:19

Definitely. That's really cool. Stuff.

Scott Dillingham: 07:20

Yep. No. That's awesome. Now I know you're helping a lot of communities and you you've got the group, you mentioned the group. How does somebody like look up that group or join that group where you can help others?

Scott Dillingham: 07:31

How do they find that?

Roxi: 07:32

Sure. So that is, on Facebook. If you search Caremongering Windsor Essex Okay. It will just pop up. And, yeah, if you

Scott Dillingham: 07:39

can

Roxi: 07:39

can join on there and see, I think we have I think there's 3,600 members. So I don't think that's too bad. Yeah. And it's still we're not as active as we were, like, during COVID when we were all at home. Sheena and I would do a live every week, check-in on everybody.

Roxi: 07:53

The group is still there. There are still people posting things. And even, like, different events or how to help, toy drives, or whatever's going on right now, or if somebody somebody's basement flooded and they don't have a Christmas tree right now, people donate Christmas trees and decorations, just different things like that right now. So

Scott Dillingham: 08:11

That's awesome. So do just to reiterate. So then if someone's in need, will you guys put the request in there and then people can help out? Is that how it works?

Roxi: 08:19

Yeah. We can put the request in if they want to do it anonymously, they can post themselves. Okay. We just tell people we just to keep it short and sweet and people have been turning up. So

Scott Dillingham: 08:29

That's awesome. Oh, that's awesome. Cool. So we're gonna take a quick pause, but when we come back, Roxy is gonna go into the latest and greatest that they're doing to help out in the Windsor Essex community and how you can be a part of it. Okay.

Scott Dillingham: 08:41

Welcome back to the show. During the break, Roxy and I were just chatting and, I discovered that you were actually quite a big helper of the June 27th miracle. So tell me about that.

Roxi: 08:51

Through our Caremonger and group, we do have people that are in need. So we would go and we obviously were advertising it as well. So we were onboard. There were people that would, do the marketing and advertising on social media, but also going to collect all the, items, all the donations. I took my children out.

Roxi: 09:11

They would argue on the way who was gonna pick up what from what house. Either of them could carry anything, but Yeah. I had to get out and help. So we would go and we would take everything, drop it all off at, like, the warehouse, And then we would go back out and do the same again. Like when my car was full.

Roxi: 09:28

After that, it was, doing volunteering time to go and sort. And then helping out our care mongers. A lot of the people that needed the help and didn't have a car and relied on public transport. So the 1st year, like, there really wasn't a lot of public transport, and I'm sure you can imagine, like, carrying a whole bunch of groceries on the bus is difficult as well. So I would go and pick up, but, like, what for 1 family at a time.

Roxi: 09:54

And it was just amazing to see, like, how much the community really came together. Like, June 27th, I think, is something that everyone's always going to remember. 1st year when we were all home and to see how giving people were.

Scott Dillingham: 10:08

And I was surprised because a lot of people were losing their jobs. Yeah. You have people losing their homes. And then you have the biggest pretty much can drive, like donation events.

Roxi: 10:18

We broke records Yeah. Compared to other places as well, which was amazing. Yep. It took weeks weeks to get those warehouses sorted and to get all the food out. That was what was so nice.

Roxi: 10:28

Each family had a plentiful there was so much food that they had, and they helped them for a long time.

Scott Dillingham: 10:35

That's awesome. That's so cool. No. I'm glad you're part of it. We, not us directly, but through some of our sponsors for past events that we've done, they donated and we pretty much filled the van as well.

Scott Dillingham: 10:46

So we filled the van and dropped it off. And so it's really cool to be able to do that and help others. That's awesome. So I'm really excited now to just talk about what you guys are doing right now, because it's almost Christmas time and there's families and children that, COVID still here. There's still, you know, bad things going on and they might not have the Christmas that they deserve.

Scott Dillingham: 11:05

So what are you guys doing now to change that?

Roxi: 11:08

So this year, we did throw around a whole bunch of ideas, but at the heart of it, both Sean and I have children, and we think that every child deserves to have an amazing Christmas. And there are things that we can control in life, and there are things that we can't. And we decided to do a toy drive and donate everything to Hiatus House

Scott Dillingham: 11:27

Okay.

Roxi: 11:27

For the children that are living there, and it's going really well.

Scott Dillingham: 11:31

That's awesome. So what kind of toys are you guys collecting?

Roxi: 11:34

So we're just collecting small toys. We wanted to make it affordable for everybody to help out. We actually have put together an Amazon wish list with toys from $5 to $25, and we also have gone out ourselves. We went to Walmart the other day, had so much fun playing with all the toys Yeah. Choosing some.

Roxi: 11:52

So we got 2 big carts full, to donate as well. So that was

Scott Dillingham: 11:57

That's awesome. It was That's awesome. So what are you guys missing? What are you still collecting right now that maybe you're missing?

Roxi: 12:03

So we still have the Amazon wishlist, which is a great way to be able to donate. You can just go on to the wish list, choose an item, and it will get delivered direct to us. I think my neighbors think that I have some crazy Amazon obsession because every night I've come home and there have been boxes everywhere. My neighbor obviously had to come and rescue all the boxes because it was raining one day and I was at work. Yeah.

Roxi: 12:27

But she's like, I managed to get everything in just one trip. So so there's that way. And we're taking donations at the Keller Williams Realty office on Dougal as well. So if you wanted to donate, bring something there. And Sean and I also, obviously we're realtors, we're out driving around all the time, so we can always come and pick something up if there's something that you would like to donate.

Roxi: 12:46

But I think my next thing I had called hiatus house yesterday and arranged a drop off, but then I was thinking, what about graphing paper and tapes? So I think that's probably gonna be the next thing that I might put in search of out there to see if anyone's got any tape and wrapping paper just so the moms can wrap everything up and the kids can have that surprise at Christmas.

Scott Dillingham: 13:07

That's awesome. No. That's a great idea. And then so you mentioned the Amazon list. So how do I find this list?

Roxi: 13:13

So if you go on to, either Sean or mine Facebook page, we've got Sean LeBlanc real estate team or, Roxy the Realtor, and it will be on there.

Scott Dillingham: 13:25

Perfect. That's awesome. I know there's quite a few things on there. Lots of selection. What if what happens if the Amazon list gets completely sold?

Scott Dillingham: 13:34

What happens at that point to help continue and get more stuff?

Roxi: 13:38

So the Amazon list actually is open. I Okay. Thought about leaving it closed. And then I thought, well, somebody wants to add something maybe that's special to them or I know my children are absolutely obsessed with LOL dolls. Yeah.

Roxi: 13:50

So they wanted to add LOL dolls onto the wish list, and that's something that we purchased and say they could bring to the office that way. There might be something that means that is meaningful to you that you can add. Okay.

Scott Dillingham: 14:02

That's so cool. So you can add whatever you want. I like that. No. That's perfect.

Scott Dillingham: 14:05

No. That's great. So anybody looking to help, look at the, the 2 Facebook pages there and then also drop anything off at the Keller Williams office. So if we just bring something there, people are gonna know that's for your drive.

Roxi: 14:18

Oh, absolutely.

Scott Dillingham: 14:18

Okay.

Roxi: 14:19

Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. My office is stuffed full of toys right now. So yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 14:23

No. That's incredible. I love it. So I'm gonna be donating right as soon as we're done this this radio show here. I'm gonna purchase a bunch of stuff on Amazon.

Scott Dillingham: 14:30

I encourage you guys to as well if you have funds available. I know things can be tight around the holidays as well, but there are kids in need. And I guess just one last question for you. What's next? So we got this going on.

Scott Dillingham: 14:43

What do you want to do next to help out the community?

Roxi: 14:46

Do you know, Sean and I discussed doing, like, a couple of things a year, so I think we want to do something big at Easter as well.

Scott Dillingham: 14:52

Okay.

Roxi: 14:53

Everything right now, like I said, I've got my 2 little girls. And so a lot of things are children oriented because of them. I want them to be involved and I want them to see what's going on. And I think, like you said earlier, I think it's it's important. Yep.

Roxi: 15:07

It trickles down.

Scott Dillingham: 15:08

It does. If you can show them these things when they're younger, they'll remember, and then they'll take that with them. And then they'll be more like that, and they'll wanna help out and do good things. So I I think it's awesome. So thanks so much, Roxy.

Scott Dillingham: 15:19

I'm glad you're here and helping out our community.

Roxi: 15:22

Thank you.

Scott Dillingham: 15:23

You're welcome. Take