Newspapers / Philanthropy Journal of North … / Dec. 1, 1994, edition 1 / Page 11
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December 1994 Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina • 11 Friends in need Tar Heels assist Texas flood victims Sixty American Red Cross volun teers from North Carolina recently went to southeast Texas, to assist the more than 15,000 victims of flash flooding and fires there. The Journal spoke hy telephone with Kenneth Guy, a 51-year-old dis aster-trained volunteer from Gamer, while he was lending a hand in Dayton, a Houston sub urb. JOURNAL: What do you do each day to help? GUY: We go out in the morning time and load our trucks up with hot meals and sandwiches. The service center Tm working at serves 15,000 meals a day. We go out twice a day. Texans who are working outside their homes, repairing damage, don’t have a chance to feed themselves. They have no water, no phones. We’ve got three water points in our area for them. JOURNAL: How does it look there? How bad is the damage? GUY: Most of the water in the area had gone down by the time we got here. But I’m working in an area where pipes burst and turned on fire. Kenneth Guy The hnes were gas, diesel and crude oil feeding the northeast part of the United States...I’ve seen several dis aster in my time with the Red Cross - I helped out after the 84 tornadoes down east - and I’ve never seen any thing like what I’ve seen here. It’s like there was a war, and somebody bombed here. Everything’s demol ished. Houses, trees, everything. Trees have not just fallen. They’ve been uprooted. JOURNAL: How are the Texans coping? GUY: Right now, their biggest I he majority of them have come to #16 point where they've .accepted that it was an act of God, a dis aster that happened to strike them. problem is water. They don’t have enough to bathe in and keep away dis ease. Water crews are working around the clock to get them water. We’re hauling water in for drop-offs everyday. JOURNAL: How’s the morale of the Texans? GUY: The majority of them have come to the point where they’ve accepted that it was an act of God, a disaster that happened to strike them. They’re just taking it one day at a time. Most are in good spirits. JOURNAX,: Have you seen any thing especially tragic or especially triumphant there? GUY: Well, they all are very wel coming about what we’re doing. The area Tm in is sort of a well-to-do area where a lot of CEO’s of companies and oil tycoons live. A lot of them have said they will remember the Red Cross. They said they already include the Red Cross in their giving packages. But this time around, they will really remember the Red Cross. JOURNAL: What led you to become a Red Cross volunteer? GUY: I’ve been volunteering just about all my hfe. I was a firefi^ter for 22 years. In 1990,1 had a heart attack, and it ended my firefighting. Now, I do this. JOURNAL: Is this any less stressful on your heart? GUY: Well, I know how much I can take, and I can say when I’ll stop. When you’re in the middle of a fire, you can’t really do that. JOURNAL: What is it about vol unteering that keeps you coming back to do more? GUY: The gratification of the peo ple. I’ve been offered administrative jobs, but I’ve turned them down because you would be stuck some where inside and not out with the people where you can see the effect of what you’re doing. I enjoy getting out in the public and seeing that I can help. Beware of ‘creeping militarism’ To THE Editor: The Chapel Hill Meeting of the Society of Friends, bearing witness to the Society’s peace testimony of more than 300 years, is opposed to the new attempt by the military to shape the thinking of our children. Through an expansion of Junior ROTC in our high schools and through the creation of “Career Academies,” military thinking, with its accompanying discrimination against gays and people with disabil ities, is entering through the back door of our schools in the guise of helping today’s “at-risk” youth. In 1992, Congress voted to increase the number of Junior ROTC LETTER TO THE EDITOR units from 1,600 to 3,500 by school year 1996-97. An August 1992, Department of Defense press release explained the expansion of JROTC as providing “at-risk youth with posi tive instructor roles [sic] models, an alternative to gangs and drug use, and an incentive to stay in high school and graduate.” In addition to an expanded JROTC program, the military is cre ating “Career Academies” at 30 pub- Uc high schools nationwide, including one in Charlotte. The Department of Defense makes the “Academies” - with classes taught by retired mili tary - attractive to schools by offer ing a $500,000 “grant.” But after two years, the schools must pick up the entire bill. The mihtary has been looking for some use for officers who are being discharged in the current downsizing of the services. They believe they have found the solution in the schools. While structure and disci pline may be understood as neces sary in order to channel the energies of youth, we reject the notion that the military has sole rights to these virtues. Our schools are starving for money, there are too few teachers and they are underpaid. So redirect the peace dividend through non-miU- EAKES Continued from page 10 to small businesses and nonprofits. Through mid-1994, we’d made over $27 million in commercial loans to more than 750 small businesses, day care centers and service agencies. The commercial loans made in 1994 created or saved nearly 400 jobs. Still, the poverty and struggles of so many North Carolina communities show us how far we stiU have to go. Minority households own homes in North Carolina at two-thirds the rate of white households. If minority families owned homes in the same proportion as white households, 125,000 more families in the state would be homeowners. Self-Help realizes we cannot over come this disparity alone. Commercial banks and credit unions are a critical part of the solution. An important feature of develop ment banks and community develop ment credit unions like Self-Help is to demonstrate to traditional finan cial institutions that low-wealth indi viduals are credit-worthy borrowers. For instance, we have yet to lose a dollar of principal on our more than $30 million in home loans. Recently, North Carolina commercial banks have begun to make loans to such borrowers. We estimate that they have made over $250 million in home loans to low-wealth home buyers. To ensure continued lending, Self-Help is creating a secondary market to purchase these mortgages from North Carolina banks. As we purchase these mortgages and sell them to investors, commercial banks can recycle their funds and continue lending to low-wealth families. When the entire $250 million portfolio is sold to investors and loaned out again, an additional 5,000 low-wealth households in North Carolina will be new homeowners. Last February, we made the first transaction of this type when we pur chased $20 million of Wachovia Bank’s low-wealth home loans. Self- Help Tvill package and resell these mortgages to foundations, colleges and other institutional investors. Duke University has already made a leadership investment of $1 mUlion in this program. Most importantly, this market will bring the pride and economic securi ty of home ownership to thousands of famUies like Thomas Avant’s who for too long, have been deprived of the economic benefits so readily avail able to the majority of American fam ilies. BONDURANT Continued from page 10 organizations? But there are also warnings of unfavorable patterns which may affect philanthropy’s share of the transfer. Who will receive the trans fer? A generation of young Americans - who did not grow up as profoundly impressed by the Depression or two World Wars as their parents - will not necessarily embrace the philanthropic values or generosity of older generations. Likewise, children accustomed to affluence may later view sharing their “inheritance” quite differently from their parents who, having had less, had learned at an early age the necessity - if not pleasure - of shar ing what they had. As we know, charitable giving often Mows voluntary participation in an organization, be it a church or civic association. Will a new genera tion brought up with TV as their par ent, nightly violence on the screen as their texts, and crowded classrooms as their sitters have the role models, desire or experience to make wise philanthropic allocations of the dol lars descending upon them? Moreover, the press reminds us from time to time that not all non profits are well-managed or deserv ing; other worthy organizations may suffer a consequential decrease in pubUc support. What may help to increase the transfer to philanthropic organiza tions that address public needs? A few suggestions: • Let’s have more cooperation and less competition among nonprof its. There really shouldn’t be any competition among lighthouses; just bright beacons, cutting through the darkness of greed, bigotry, fear and inhumanity. • Let’s pay more attention to improvement in the management and service delivery among nonprofits, coupled with improving their media skills so that the public can better understand the jobs that the nonprof its are doing. • Let’s encourage the creation of family foundations during the donors’ lifetimes, with boards com prised of family and non-family mem bers, some of whom may in time cre ate their own foundations with fund forever committed to the public good. • And let’s remind ourselves of the wisdom behind E Plurbus Unum: out of many, one. Let’s encourage celebration of diversity, its richness and biologic strength, while pulling toward the security, integrity and pleasure of oneness with our nei^- bors and the world’s real wealth. Philanthropy listings available on Internet The Philanthropy Journal now Is available on your computer. Through the facilities of Nando.net, an information service of The News & Observer in Raleigh, news and career listings that are printed in the Journal also will be accessible on the Internet, the global network of computer networks. Each month, the Journal will place selected news stories about philanthropy on Nando.net. The Journal also will electronically pub lish help-wanted listings for jobs in fundraising and the nonprofit sector. • If you have access to the Internet, call (919) 836-2808 for infor mation about how to gain access to the electronic version of the Journal. • If you have access to the World Wide Web, direct your access to http:/Avww.nando.net. • For information about placing nonprofit and fundraising job listings on Philanthropy Journal Online, call Marguerite LeBlanc at (919) 829- 8991 or send e-mail to tcohen@nando.net. Boaro of .Dn{i3CTOB.s ffe^DAMKtSlR. PAUMAWoRONOFF WnrCiAMCE MaFficHlR. Philanthrqiy Jounuil of North Carohna Board of Advisers tary agencies and offer civilian alter natives to those leaving the military, such as retraining as school teach ers. We alert everyone to this creep ing militarism in our society. We sup port those who are attempting to stop this further invasion of the pub lic schools and we also support those who are advocating non-militaristic solutions to the problems of drug use, crime, and high dropout rates among our youth. Michael D. Green, clerk, Chapel Hill Meeting of the Society of Friends Barbara Allen Corinne Alien I Joyce Adger - ^ I Wiiam Anlyan#, George AuUy pohf! Bell ] David Benevides f Philip Slumaithal William Bondurant Kenneth Brown Robert Bush Henry Carter Julius Chambers t Ray Cope i Julia Daniels j Gayle Dorman . i John Dornan ' Ronald Orago I Wentworth Ourgin Itofc Bakes i Blucher Ehringhaus ! Meredith Emmett. r Eiifabeth Fentress Joyce Rtepatridc Joel Fleishman Barbara freeman Jama Goodmon . .. Marilyn Hartman Jane Kendall Thomas Lambeth Elizabeth Locke Michael Marsfcano Todd Miller Mary Mountcastle John Ntblock Jane Patterson Michael Rose Shannon St. John Charles Sanders Donald Sanders Mary D.B.T. Semans Patricia Smith Sherwood: Smith William Spencer Ronald Swain Smedes YoA Tlie Pfiilanthropy Jitumal welcomes letters. Letters must be Please include a daytime phone number. Letters are subject to . editing. ^, Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina A Publication Of The News and Observer Foundation 215 S. McDowell St. Raleigh, NC 27601 (919) 829-8988 VoL. 2 No. 4 SUBSCRIPTION PRICES 1 year (12 Issues) $57 2 years (24 issues) $104 3 years (36 issues) $143 Multiple-copy discounts O'^O ll a Call (919) 829-4763 for rates. FOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION, CALL (919) 829-4763 OR (919) 829-8991.
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Dec. 1, 1994, edition 1
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