This on the Marines' fundraising from the WSJ's Daniel Henninger:
Last week's column gave readers a chance to contribute money to help restore seven small TV stations in Iraq. The project is the joint idea of the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad, and Spirit of America, a philanthropy begun by Los Angeles businessman Jim Hake to assist American GIs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Hake's goal is to raise $100,000 to buy equipment to upgrade the stations. Here are the results:
As of yesterday afternoon, some 4,965 readers of The Wall Street Journal (and their friends) had contributed $880,321. The individual contributions ranged from $3.50 to $50,000.
Jim Hake is stunned by the response. He says his friends in the Marine Corps are stunned. My colleagues and I are not. The generosity of this newspaper's readership is well known to those of us at Dow Jones who have witnessed it repeatedly over the years.
Mr. Hake is now purchasing the TV equipment--new PCs, camcorders, editing equipment and the like--which will be delivered directly to Camp Pendleton in California and loaded on the earliest available Marine transport plane bound for Iraq. When the dust settles, Mr. Hake will post a verbal and financial accounting of the project on the group's Web site, spiritofamerica.net. I'll follow up again soon.
As to the project exceeding its funding goals, Mr. Hake says this ensures that the rebuilding and upgrading of community TV stations in Iraq can be extended. He has no intention of letting Spirit of America become "big and stupid." Any additional funds will be used as in all the group's projects up to now--to respond to requests initiated by U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan for help with small, nonmilitary civil reconstruction projects.
Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com. |
