Free Republic

MINNEAPOLIS — Last year, with the federal government making available huge new sums of money for programs to feed needy children during the pandemic, a nonprofit organization called Advance Youth Athletic Development set up what it described as an enormous child care operation in northeast Minneapolis that could prepare 5,000 dinners each weeknight. Based on the group’s claims, the State of Minnesota channeled $3.2 million of the federal food aid to the program. But on a subzero morning in January, the F.B.I. carried out a series of predawn raids around the region. It revealed a sprawling investigation into Advance Youth...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Larry Jones, a traveling preacher from Oklahoma, gave 20 cents to a hungry child on the streets in Haiti in 1979 and felt more could be done to help starving children. Over the next 30 years, Jones and his family embraced that ideal. They created Feed the Children, one of the world's largest charities, and it became known for Jones' heart-wrenching televised pleas for donations as a hungry child with sad eyes sat by his side. But now Jones has been fired from his own charity and is in a legal fight to get his job...

Larry Jones took bribes and hid hard-core porn magazines at the charity, Feed The Children is alleging in a countersuit against its fired president. The charity also is accusing Jones in the civil case of other misdeeds, including misspending charity funds, pocketing travel money, keeping gifts from appearances and misusing a charity employee as a nanny. Jones, 69, denied wrongdoing. "They fired me wrongfully,” Jones said Tuesday evening. "What they’re trying to do is build a case up against me so that will hold up. It won’t hold up … I didn’t do anything. … If I had … done...

Watchdog group says $1.2M home to lure celebrities may get Feed The Children in tax trouble BY NOLAN CLAY Published: July 19>, 2009 © Copyright 2009 The Oklahoman A charity known for its heart-wrenching appeals for funds to feed starving children spent $1.2 million in donations on a house a few miles from Hollywood, an investigation by The Oklahoman found. Feed The Children, an Oklahoma City-based Christian relief organization, bought the new four-bedroom house in Burbank, Calif., in May 2007, records show. The daughter of the charity’s president then moved in, records show. The daughter, Larri Sue Jones, 43, told...

ELKHART, Ind. - In this job-starved city where President Barack Obama last month made a public appeal for his economic stimulus plan, hundreds of volunteers — and an agency that specializes in handing out food — worked together Tuesday to feed 5,200 hungry families. Roughly 300 local volunteers worked with Feed the Children to distribute more than $2.1 million worth of food at Concord Mall as part of the nonprofit relief organization’s “Feeding Americans Emergency Caravan.” The caravan of semi-trailers is visiting small cities and towns across America hit hard by the economic crisis. No area in Indiana has been...

ELKHART, Ind.: Hundreds of cars lined up in economically distressed Elkhart on Tuesday to receive food and other items from 13 semitrailers sent by a charity. The trucks carried more than $2.1 million worth of food, enough to help sustain about 5,200 families for a week. Elkhart, with an unemployment rate of 18.3 percent, was recently visited by President Barack Obama trying to muster public support for economic stimulus legislation. The line wrapped around a shopping mall parking lot and onto surrounding roads. Layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry have driven much of the job loss in northern Indiana. The...

Mark Steyn on Hurricane Katrina HH: Hi, Mark. Welcome to the program. MS: Good to be with you, Hugh. HH: Mark, there's a lot to talk about. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Let's start with the good. I'm glad you're joined in over at Steynonline.com. I'm impressed by how many people are willing to raise money. Do you think that the charitable capacity of America is up to this rebuilding effort? MS: Well, I think that's not an issue, really. My little site, we've been giving the proceeds of book sales today, just for 24 hours. And when...

The hurricane in Louisiana and surrounding states at the end of August was a horrible event and it will take months if not years to figure the cost of it all to the American people as we struggle to clean up and rebuild the many devastated areas. Many people from around the country are trying to find a place to donate money to help these victims. Unfortunately, there are many, many supposed charities that just aren't worth giving to and many more that are outright frauds. This is a warning report about just one of those charities. The Salem Radio...

I'm strapped for cash with the gas prices the way they are (and my nasty commute, which I have chosen to inflict on myself), but the better man in me continues to remind me that I have plenty. In fact, I have more than plenty. I chose to sit the Tsunami-Relief Wave out, fearing the money would end up supporting a terrorist cell, Islamic State, or one of the many villanous despotic leaders of Southeast Asia. But I cannot turn my back on my fellow Americans. They a grieving, they are needy. They need us. They need the average citizen,...

One of the more odious tactics of today's historical revisionists is the outright denial of the Jewish Holocaust. Beginning with the Nazis themselves, and continuing through modern Hitler apologists, it has always been fashionable among the desperately anti-Semitic to claim that the six million exterminated Jews simply never existed. Now a similar deceit surrounds the tragedy of starvation in Africa. And judging from the "Biodevastation" protest event held during the past few days in St. Louis, the new Holocaust deniers are today's anti-biotech campaigners. According to Oxfam America, more than 14 million people in Southern Africa face starvation. The Food...