Haley and Tatiana with Kisses4Kate enjoy a night at the park Saturday. K4K held a fundraiser at the Winston-Salem Dash game and will be selling the old Thornton home in an effort to help more children diagnosed with cancer.
Ever since Kisses4Kate’s inception last year, directors Kat Manzella and Kayte Oliver have reached across the boundary lines of sports and entertainment. The duo is now trying their hands in real estate in an effort to raise money for a nonprofit that helps area children who are suffering from cancer.
“We’ve got some eccentric ways of raising funds,” Manzella said. “We have found some different avenues than what other people take. We’re different and we do things differently than other 501 nonprofits. It just seems to work for us.”
Kisses4Kate’s initial project started last year when Manzella and Oliver raised enough money to move the Thornton family into a new home. Kate Thorton was diagnosed with leukemia at a very young age, and her family lived in a small Thomasville house on Lanford Drive that was ill-equipped for Kate’s many medical needs. Just days before Kate lost her battle with the deadly disease, the Thornton family moved into their new home near Wallburg, but Kisses4Kate’s job had just begun. Oliver and Manzella are now hoping the Thornton’s old home can be turned into a chance to help even more children like Kate.
Kisses4Kate volunteers have spent the past few weeks getting the Thornton completely moved out of 3-bedroom Lanford Drive residence and are now prepping the home to be sold with fresh paint and new floors. A nearby neighbor also is selling her home and the proceeds from both, after all expenses have been paid, will go toward Kisses4Kate.
“It’s really a unique opportunity for us to have someone want to do this for us,” said Oliver. “[The neighbor] approached us about this last Fall and we want to get those sold as soon as we can. It’s just a process of tedious work but we’re going to get it done.”
Oliver is hoping a local real estate agent could assist the nonprofit in selling the homes, as it will have to be done as a sale-by-owner transaction to lessen any overhead that would deplete most of the profits.
“If we could find someone to help with that it would be huge,” Oliver said. “It will be challenging enough for us to try and sell it. We have spruced them a lot.”
For more information, call Oliver at 416-7639, Manzella at 471-4863, or visit Kisses4Kate.org.
Staff Writer Eliot Duke can be reached at 888-3578, or duke@tvilletimes.com.
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