The ARC of Washington County is one of my favorite charities. They had their annual charity auction last week and we won a customized financial plan from the Wellstone Group. The voucher says that it is worth $2000. We do not have use for it, but hope someone does. In return, we were looking for a donation to the ARC for $100. I am also ok taking Blazer tickets or musical instruments that I would give $100 for, then making the contribution.
You had the be there. (the Keeton thread) It's all good, though. If he says OK, I'd be glad to do it...so long as he doesn't make Mt. Tabor the meeting destination.
I am confused by the reference to Mt Tabor. Aside from lack of coffeeshops, why is Mt Tabor an undesirable meeting location? barfo
It's all good. For the record, Mt Tabor was/is "The fighting place" over @ O-Live. Got to be pretty laughable when guys who wanted to square-off would say stuff like, "Oh Yeah?!.....Yeah!....Well, then, OK, I'll meet you up @ Mt. Tabor Park this Saturday morning @ 8 AM! Be there or be................" Stuff like that. (Ask Sly Poker Dog. He knows much better than I about said challenges.) Anyway, CF, thanks for the nice feedback...PM style. You're a good man, Charlie Brown.
Just got back from 4 days at the glorious central Oregon coast and can't wait to see Bayless play for us this season.
Once I went to my first auction, it was not hard to find a few dollars for them. My biggest problem with most charities is the percentage of each gift that actually goes to programs. I think alot of people would be surprised how little it is. For the ARC, it seems like just about every dollar goes towards helping. The other part I love is that you can clearly see how it is helping someone. One of the admins at my old job gave birth in the 70's to a four month premature child. This was well before all of the advances we have now and he was very lucky to have survived. It resulted in him needing help to this day to do most things we take for granted. Instead of this being a negative, he now enjoys the company of other adults like him at the ARC while getting the special help he needs. His mom is able to work an 40 hr week and they are truly happy. Looks like they put the voucher in from the auction in January as well, so I have two. It has an expiration date of one year, so you would have to use it in the next couple of months. If anyone would want it for a $100 donation, I would throw in one of mgb's season seats to the opener against the Suns on Tuesday.
I think this can be tied closely with whether it is a real "charity" in that it is run by volunteers with no paid executive positions and no actual offices to pay rent and utilities for, but instead are a board of volunteers that run the charity and allocate the funds (like PTAs for schools). Those are true charities that use 100% of the funds back to a good cause. Where you run into what you're referring to are non-profits that pay their president $100K and their co-vice presidents $80K, etc. That isn't a "charity" as they're spending 40% of their auction proceeds on Admin costs to fund their full-time employees.
