Pembroke charity Old Colony Elder Services Inc., has received a $2,500 Housing and Homeless Assistance Grant from the Massachusetts Association of Realtors Charitable Foundation, after being nominated by the Plymouth and South Shore Association of Realtors’ (PASS) Community Service Committee.

Old Colony Elder Services was selected for providing low-income South Shore elders fuel assistance, utility payment assistance and emergency shelter, according to PASS.

"With federal and local aid being cut, many smaller charities such as Old Colony Elder Services are suffering financially while their client base increases exponentially," PASS Association President Marcia Solberg, of Macdonald and Wood Sotheby’s International Realty in Duxbury, said in a statement. "Old Colony Elder Services enriches our communities by helping elderly residents overcome obstacles that hinder them from being self-sufficient. PASS Realtors consider it their responsibility to assist these charities and utilize every avenue available to them, such as the Massachusetts Association of Realtors (MAR) grants, to achieve that goal."

The MAR charitable foundation’s board of trustees created the grant program in 2000 to encourage Realtor support for local non-profit groups and their initiatives to provide affordable housing, shelter and other emergency care services within Massachusetts. 
Grants are awarded in the spring and fall of each calendar year. The deadline for the fall 2011 funding round is Oct. 1.