Nashville, Tenn. - Sales associates and employees of Crye-Leike, Realtors in Middle Tennessee collected over 300 new backpacks filled with school supplies for Youth Villages of Middle Tennessee, a donation that has allowed the children and adolescents served by Youth Villages to start the new school year with brand new school supplies.

"Most of the children and adolescents in our care have had to move from place to place and have very little to call their own," said Patti Bryan, development director of Youth Villages in Middle Tennessee. "Backpacks for students now have become essential items which most children take for granted. In many ways, having new backpacks of their own on that all-important first day of school is a big boost for our Youth Villages' children."

Youth Villages (www.youthvillages.org) offers help and hope to more than 2,000 troubled children and their families each year (over 1,000 in Nashville and Middle Tennessee) through a continuum of care that ensures treatment in the most effective, least restrictive environment. Services include: home-based counseling, therapeutic foster care and adoption services, residential treatment, community-based programs and transitional living services.

Today, more than 750 counselors, teachers and skilled support staff provide Youth Villages' services from offices in 15 cities throughout Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Texas. Youth Villages has five locations in Middle Tennessee: Nashville, Clarksville, Columbia, Cookeville and Linden (Deer Valley).

Supporting Youth Villages is not new to Crye-Leike. For the past 20 years, Crye-Leike, Realtors has held a holiday fund-raiser called Campaign for Children, a program in which Crye-Leike sales associates and employees purchase in bulk holiday greeting cards, designed by Youth Villages children, to send to their clients and friends. All proceeds raised are designated for the Chris Crye Fund and are used to purchase holiday gifts for the children at Youth Villages and to support their mentoring programs. To date, Crye-Leike has raised in excess of $230,000 for Youth Villages.

Crye-Leike (www.crye-leike.com), a full service real estate company for 25 years, is the nation's 13th largest real estate company and the largest serving Tennessee and the Mid-South. Crye-Leike of Nashville, Inc. has 22 branch and franchise offices in 10 counties throughout a two-state Mid-South region in Tennessee and Kentucky. Sales associates in the Greater Nashville area currently total over 800.