Nov 1st 2007, 00:00

I just read an announcement in the LA Times that an Orange County billionaire has committed to giving $100 million over the next five years to support education and other charitable interests. More specifically youth sports, medical research and troops in the Middle East. I’m not clear about the last item. I just hope he’s talking about American troops and not the other guys.

We have no connection to this person so I doubt we will benefit from any of his largess. I am sure you are relieved to know that the large naming opportunities ($500,000) are still available. But that brings up a very real concern for me and the Project Legacy committee. Who will stand up and donate the multi hundreds of thousands of dollars to help us build the Asa Center? The better question is who among us is financially capable of making a gift of this magnitude? A $3.5 million project must have one or two major givers to reach its goal. We have identified only one or two possibilities.

We have two alternatives. One is to look outside our congregation to people and trust funds that support this kind of effort, specifically in the Jewish Community. You can help us by contacting people you know who can give at these levels. The second alternative is for each of you to make the largest single charitable commitment of your lives to a construct a building to house the Jewish future in North Orange County. To put this into individual perspective, if we get no outside help, we need the average pledge to be $12,500.

As I see it, in our short lives, we have very few opportunities to leave meaningful legacies. There are our children who carry on the DNA that has combined and developed into the kind of people we have become. We hope that they will take it further still. And then there are our good works and enduring investments that repair and sustain the world. For many of us the children part is just about done. High school, college and they are gone. Over the last 20 years I have supported many Jewish and Secular charities in a modest attempt to repair the world. Project Legacy is the first opportunity in my life that has literally struck me where I live. It will sustain and nurture the Jewish Legacy that flows in my children’s veins and in the veins of our entire community.

The Asa Center is a rare opportunity for non-billionaires to make a difference. Please join us and make the most significant gift of yourlife.