A Creative Fundraising Effort from Mel Morganstein...

I am a photographer in Silver Spring and when I started thinking about reducing my large inventory of negatives of weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, portraits, etc. going back to 1977, I thought of a way to raise money to help kids like Ethan and their families.

Rather than just dump them or try and sell them to the families outright in case they wanted them as a "backup" in case something happened to their album, etc., I offered the negatives from 1977 thru 1983 for sale at the following "deal".  They could write me a check for $300 for each set of negatives, but I would take only $100 if they would also send me a matching $100 donation to the PBTFUS or the Ride for Kids.  For a couple of friends and family, of course, I wanted nothing for myself but would settle for nothing less than $100 for the Ride.  I wrote over 160 letters to people, knowing a lot of addresses would be bad. But is was worth the try anyway.  I raised $1200 that way.  I also emailed about 130 friends and family and raised almost another 700 that way.