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Walking away from Resort Condominiums International Inc. hasn't been easy for Christel DeHaan.
"My emotional association with RCI will always be there," said DeHaan, who sold the local time-share exchange company to New Jersey-based HFS Inc. [now Cendant Corp.] two years ago. "I love the company and the people with a passion. You don't lose that."
DeHaan, however, has found a new passion. And she hopes it will be just as successful as RCI, which she and her then-husband, Jon, founded at their dining room table in 1974.
With the help of 10 former RCI employees and her family foundation, DeHaan recently formed Christel House Foundation--a public charity to help orphaned, disadvantaged and abandoned children in developing countries.
The Christel House model, as DeHaan refers to it, is quite similar to the business model she used to grow RCI into the world's largest time-share exchange company, worth $825 million at the time of its sale.
Like RCI--which never owned timeshare resorts--Christel House will not own orphanages. Instead, the foundation plans to affiliate with a number of orphanages in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and India.
Through those affiliations, Christel House will create, equip and staff neighboring resource centers that will assess each orphan's physical and psychological health as well as educational and vocational abilities. Based on the results of those assessments, Christel House will design an individualized plan of intervention and skill...