Dear Nonprofiteer,
Isn’t it great that the Boeing Company gave $50,000 to a program at Camp Pendleton? According to a press release,
Art & Creativity for Healing will use the $50,000 Crystal Vision Award to support the “Art for Healing for Heroes and their Families” program at Camp Pendleton. Initiated in November 2008, at San Onofre Elementary, located on the northern tip of Camp Pendleton, the purpose of this program is to assist military personnel and their families in processing their personal journey using collage, journaling and painting . . . . The program will also address the special needs of enlisted men and women who are working through war-related experiences. . . .
“Art for Healing is a program that is capable of supporting the entire military family,” said Lieutenant Colonel Sam Pelham, Deputy, Community Plans and Liaison Office, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton School Liaison Officer. “It provides both adults and children an opportunity to connect and confront stress associated with multiple deployments during a time of war and offers a unique and creative outlet for expression…and ultimately healing.”
Signed, Proud to Have Corporate Help in Supporting Our Troops
Dear Proud:
The Nonprofiteer is delighted to see support shown to veterans and their families, and she has every reason to believe the program being supported here is a worthy and valuable one. And she’s also always been in favor of taking money from corporations without regard to how they made that money: in her view, tobacco companies ought to support cancer research and men’s magazines ought to underwrite domestic violence programs; who better?
Still, she can’t help noting the details of how Boeing made that $50,000, and many other dollars besides. Defense work has accounted for more than half its revenue for 4 out of the last 5 years (an upward spike in commercial accounts, and much-publicized shunning by the Congress, reversed the situation in 2007), and its publicly-announced business plan is to seek much more defense money in the future.
Those who profit from the wars we’re fighting should absolutely be in the forefront of helping rehabilitate our wounded fighters. The Nonprofiteer just thinks it would be tasteful for them to do so without a lot of plumage.
