The way I approach these things is to try and drop a dollar or two into their return envelope if I believe their program sound. I remove my name from any of the correspondence or return envelop and send it back. I do not wish to perpetuate the name selling that has become part and parcel of the big business of charity. I try and keep things local if at all possible, the local hospice, the local food bank.
But it seems as if the only growth industry we are seeing in this country of late is the poverty business. Solicitation for charity have reached the point where they are a distraction. There is no end of print and television or radio request for your hard earned. I can't help but wonder when does it stop and how many people are employed in the never ending quest for donation. I find myself increasingly disturbed by the Wounded Warrior Project, who among us is not distressed at seeing the plight of severely wounded and disabled veterans. Who among us does not feel that the government is not the responsible entity to address their needs. A friend who is actively engaged in Veteran's Affairs feels that it is the type of organization which needs to be vetted closely. Too many ads he says, those ads cost money, when there is too much money there is too much overhead and too many people making too much off poverty or illness, he says.
I do not know, I am torn by my Catholic Guilt complex and feel as if I should contribute. 2 out of 8 got a couple of dollars today. 5 dollars today, can mean over 1500 per year at the rate they come in. In the Appalachian envelope they enclosed a photo of a dilapidated home. I feel they are tearing at my heart strings, and given that I have much to be thankful for this year, I really feel the pull.
30 years ago I represented a lady who shall be called Freda. She lived in such a house. She purchased the home from a real estate wheeler dealer under what is known as an installment land contract. It is a purchase device where the seller holds the financing , which is a contract, not a mortgage. It has no buyer protections.. A single default in payment means that the buyer loses the deal and all subsequent payments are treated as rent, not reduction of debt. Freda paid dutifully for close to 30 years and at the end of that time, she went to the seller and asked for her deed. He said to her that she had paid late some 29 years earlier and all her payments were being treated as rent. She had never been late, but she was not sophisticated and she had no money to fight. She felt defeated. Her cousin Harry and his brother Izzy came to see me to see if I could help.
Freda had raised her two grandchildren in that house. It was a 3 room house, one bath, one larger central room and one so called bedroom. No central heat and no hot water. She moved into the place originally as a tenant during the war years when her family had left the mine country of Pennsylvania and they had come down to work in the munitions factories in the area. She worked sewing uniforms in Paterson NJ. Thereafter she worked as a seamstress and domestic. She raised the boys in the house as they had been abandoned by her daughter. The house was brutally cold in the winter , with only a small cast iron stove to provide heat. Unimaginable in one of NJ's most affluent counties.
The reason why Freda needed a deed was she wanted to sell the property so she could move to Florida and finally feel some warmth. The land had become worth a few bucks. We fought the good fight for Freda and she got her deed and was able to sell and move to Florida. She got a good price.
I thought of her yesterday when I drove down the street of a town in Bergen County NJ and saw the
fine little strip mall and office building they had put on her lot. I continued to represent her grandson for years after and he always thanked me for helping his grandmother, Freda. I always felt good about that case early in a career.Few have made me feel that way. He called to let me know of her death a few years back, well into her 90's having enjoyed her last years in warmth. The seller knew that the value would be there as some point and he knew he could prey upon the poverty and unsophisticated Freda.
Sometime this holiday season when the solicitors are making you feel guilty as I am today, think about what is around you and look for the local need, the unsolicited need, the small need. I know I will be doing the same. You can only do so much. Maybe a kind word, a kind act a few dollars in the kettle, for me it will be local and it surely will be anonymous and I will be grateful of the chance. I will know I have done what I can without the guilt dumped on me by these national campaigns.