>>>>>I know that Americans are very charitable people and give a lot. But I always wonder where these money goes. Obviously one wants their charity to go to the "cause" and not to the expense or fund raising. But I realize that one cannot work without the other. Many years ago I had a CPA who was doing my tax and once we got to talk about what else he does (beside tax returns) he said that he runs a charity. I never asked him what charity he runs although would be interesting. I fired him later though (for a different reason).
>>>>
>>>>FWIW, Marshal and I are the co-presidents of a non-profit here (www.hebrewfreeloanphila.org). Our group is entirely volunteer-operated and runs on about $3K a year (most of it for credit reports). While we're doing good work, we could actually help a lot more people if we had an employee. Our board handles day-to-day operations quite well, but with only volunteers, we don't manage to do the long-term things that would build the organization.
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>>>>Tamar
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>>>I admire you for getting directly involved in a charity. I'm just curious why you chose to limit it to benefit only members of the Jewish community?
>>
>>We inherited this organization. Marshal's parents founded it nearly 25 years ago (after a push from our synagogue's rabbi). When they were ready to slow down, they put us on the board, and after a couple of years, with no one else willing to do so, we became the presidents.
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>>Marshal's dad was the president for about 20 years. One of the things we're working on is growing new leadership so that we don't have to do it that long.
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>>Tamar
>
>Knowing how altruistic you are (seriously, I have witnessed it firsthand), I am not surprised you were willing to step in to help others.

Thanks for the kind words, Tracy. The timing was also good. This all happened just after Nathaniel went off to school and I hadn't yet decided what to put into the hole left by PTO, etc.

For my best friend, the empty nest came a year later, just as Katrina hit and she's ended up massively involved with an organization that does disaster relief.

Tamar