For families not blessed with legions of helpful friends and relatives, the experience of dealing with the hundreds of charitable agencies and funds can be maddening.
The engineer had worked for several charitable agencies as a cook, driver, builder of ramps for the handicapped and program coordinator; the paratrooper was a plant worker and an ordained Baptist minister.
The second involved accusations that, while he was mayor of Jerusalem and later in the cabinet, he billed multiple state and charitable agencies for the same travel expenses and used the extra money for private family trips.
In the latest case, known here as "Olmert Tours," the prime minister is suspected of having billed multiple state and charitable agencies for the same flights when he was mayor of Jerusalem and a government minister, using the extra money for private family trips.
Court-ordered community service requires an offender to perform a specific number of hours of free work for a charitable agency, nonprofit organization, or governmental agency, and it can be ordered as a condition of probation or as an alternative to incarceration.
For example, Ashlee Kleinert of Dallas was interested in supporting local charitable agencies that are dedicated to helping women who find themselves caught up in prostitution, domestic violence and homelessness.
But most agreed that government and charitable agencies were coping as effectively as feasible with immediate demands for shelter, food, water and medical care, along with search and rescue operations.
Luckily for the family, their priest made contact with Catholic Charities, Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, one of the seven charitable agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.
The remainder was distributed to other performing arts groups, professional theater training programs and charitable agencies.
