As the city of South Vietnam fell at the end of the Vietnam War, Rosemary Tran Lauer took her young children to the bustling docks of Saigon with the expectation of locating her husband. Instead, she found chaos. Engulfed by the pandemonium as a throng of refugees boarded a ship, she and her children were swept on board. 

“There were thousands of people on the ship,” she recalled “It was dangerous, and there was shooting. I knew if I were to sit up I would soon be dead.” Ten days later, the ship landed in Guam, which became a US processing camp for evacuees. 

Alone and destitute, the single mother of two young children was soon sponsored by the International Rescue Committee to live in Washington, DC. “I was saved by grace,” she said. Over the next few years, she slowly climbed her way out of poverty, which spawned her commitment to help other families avoid such fate. She created the nonprofit Devotion to Children in 1994, which works to provide affordable, quality childcare to children under age six for the working poor.

“The children are the ones who suffer the most,” Tran Lauer said, and she always knew she wanted “do good” when her life changed direction. 

“Devotion to Children has helped over 3,000 children through various forms of services,” Tran Lauer said. “We offer computer labs, children’s libraries, child care scholarships, emergency child care funding and preschool testing.”

Her own turbulent journey as an immigrant has provided her with insight and perceptiveness, she explained. As a Realtor®, “I don't sell, I serve the best interest of my clients; that is what I do,” she said.

Tran Lauer, a Long & Foster Real Estate Realtor® in Vienna, was honored by the NAR REALTOR® magazine Good Neighbor Awards program at the NAR General Assembly in New Orleans on Nov. 8. Her charity will be awarded $10,000.