Date: Fri 16-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Welcome-Wagon

Full Text:

After 70 Years-- Welcome Wagon Is Ending Home Visits

The Welcome Wagon won't be going out on the road anymore after the end of this

year.

Ending a 70-year tradition, the Welcome Wagon will stop sending

representatives out to knock on doors and greet newcomers in cities across the

country with baskets of coupons, maps and other gifts from local merchants.

Instead, new arrivals, along with new parents and newly engaged women, will

get a bound directory of coupons mailed to them.

Welcome Wagon's parent, Cendant Corp., blames the rise of two-career

households for its dismissal of most of its 2,200 representatives.

"The world is changing. People are not home, moms are working," Cendant

spokesman Elliot Bloom said Monday. "This is not an effective way to reach

people."

Welcome Wagon got its start in 1928, and at its peak in the 1960s,

representatives made 1.5 million home visits. But that has fallen to about a

half-million visits this year.

"It's truly an American institution that is ending," said Dee Strilowich,

whose baskets delivered to her new neighbors in Redding and Ridgefield, made

her Welcome Wagon's top saleswoman the past two years.

Mrs Strilowich, 58, said she makes many of her 900 annual home visits at night

or on weekends, and experienced "very, very few refusals" when she sought

appointments. She said she recalled getting a Welcome Wagon visit when her

family moved to Connecticut 28 years ago.

Welcome Wagon will retain about 500 of its representatives to solicit

merchants for the directories. Mrs Strilowich declined an offer to take on a

new role.

"I want to keep doing what I've been doing, and I feel very bad that I can't

keep doing that," Mrs Strilowich said selling an advertising book will not

give her enough contact with people.

She has been a representative for four years, and is one of the few who do it

full-time, earning enough in commissions and bonuses to qualify for medical

benefits and a retirement account.

The news of the demise of the home-visit system stunned Sue Schneider, who has

been the Welcome Wagon representative in Newtown since 1990.

"It was quite a shock," she said on Tuesday. "I usually make 40 to 50 calls a

month. I always try to work by appointments so people know I am coming. I had

five appointments today, three tomorrow, five on Thursday, and three on

Saturday."

Mrs Schneider said she has not found working moms to be a problem in her home

visits.

"Usually when a family is new in town, and just getting settled in, only one

of the spouses is working fulltime. One or the other is usually available.

I've found people to be very receptive," she said.

Mrs Schneider also was given the opporunity to be a sales representative, but

she said she isn't interested in doing only that part of the job.

"I feel very sorry for the town because I think the home visits are a

service," she said. "Besides gifts from merchants, I always give out

information on the clubs in town, the telephone numbers of town offices,

information about recycling, the library, voter registration, deer ticks,

raccoons -- you name it! The new residents have a chance to ask questions. It

is a very personal welcome."

Welcome Wagon is scheduled to end home visits at the end of December. Mrs

Schneider said she plans to work until the middle of December, stopping before

the peak of the Christmas season.

"I'm going to miss seeing the people and visiting them," she said. "It was

nice having a rapport with the businesses in town and it was a good

endorsement for the businesses in town. When you get things in the mail, you

don't know who sent it. It's not the same."

Along with the home visits, Welcome Wagon also sponsored local Welcome Wagon

clubs. The Newtown club disassociated itself from Welcome Wagon several years

ago and renamed itself the Newtown Newcomers Club so that it could increase

its membership by having less restrictive membership rules.

In addition to Welcome Wagon, Cendant's holdings include real estate

brokerages Century 21 and Coldwell Banker; the rental car agency Avis; and

several hotel chains.

(The Associated Press contributed to this article.)