Dorothy Philbin | CNBNews
Have you noticed how many appeals you see on television for $19 a month for this charity or $11 a month for another? These commercials run so often that you might have to wonder how much $19 buy and is it enough to cover the cost of advertising? Personally, I never understood it, so I had to do some research.
The reason for only $19 a month? That only amounts to $228 per year. Contributions of $250 or more per year generate files that must be kept for the IRS. Even with that being true, something just doesn’t feel right.
Then I came across lawsuits against, of all charities, St. Jude’s Hospital for Children. At first, I thought the complaints were ridiculous. Despite all the free medical care, travel, housing, and meals people were complaining, people wanted more! They complained that St. Jude wasn’t paying for their cell phones, rent at home, gas and electric bills, etc. Free medical, which in many cases amounts to millions of dollars, wasn’t enough?
Some additional complaints included the fact that the ads say the hospital/charity pays for travel. In reality, travel is only paid if the distance is more than 500 miles, city limit-to-city limit, not door-to-door. Again, despite getting millions of dollars in free medical services people complained that if they lived on the far side of town the distance might be 510 miles and they felt they should be reimbursed for the travel.
One situation with which I could sympathize was a case of a father who had to sleep in his truck every night. The parents of the patient weren’t married. The first time the parents were together and everything went as planned. A few years later the child was back at St. Jude’s but the parents were no longer together and only the mother had custody. The father received none of the benefits (housing, meals, etc.) Regardless of the parents’ status, the man was still the child’s father. He did get to see his daughter every day and was a part of her care but was never given the benefits the child’s mother received.