[Tony Radford]

I made a hobby out of this "charitable contribution" business a while back. The law states that these charity marketing organizations must donate a minimum of 15% of the proceeds to the charity. One in particular that pissed me off was the Marine Toys for Tots program. They made it look like the solicitation came directly from the Marines and gave an address that was on "Marine Base Blvd." I did a Mapquest of the address and it was a small office in an office park on a short street by that name. When ever these folks call - Fraternal Order of Police etc. etc., I always ask what their contribution percentage is and it's always 15%, with 85% slated for marketing expenses. There's a huge industry of these outfits doing just that. By the way, I'm not stingy. I have been raising two Phillippine kids through Children's Internationa for 10 years. I just prefer that my money be used to help those that need it as opposed to making Porsche payments for telemarketers.