Our newspaper just did a glowing profile on the upcoming gala for a Long Island nonprofit known as the Rollstone Foundation.
This group, formed over a decade ago by Bayport spouses — political consultant Michael Dawidziak and former Islip Town Councilwoman Pam Greene — is a shining example of what a not-for-profit truly should be.
Pam and Mike started this group not to enrich themselves, but rather to help the most vulnerable among us. Each year, Rollstone solicits donations that can be given to parents who are willing to adopt orphaned children living in the most dire of circumstances.
Children who are deaf and blind, living with HIV, severely disabled and/or immobile would otherwise perish, if not for these amazing parents coming to the rescue and bringing these children into their families.
The work of Pam and Mike is brought to life by their outstanding board, including president Frank Maffei, an attorney living in West Islip; Colleen West of Bayport, the former chair of United Cerebral Palsy of Suffolk; Janet Longo, a retired Suffolk County employee; Peter Williams of the Pewville Capital group based in Patchogue. Rounding out the board are Janet Longo, Andrea Casey, Dawn L. Hargreaves, Shawn A. Weis, and Dorothy M. Bagnato.
So far, this group of amazing people has raised over $1 million for this cause.
And here’s the most noteworthy part of all: Not a dollar of that money goes toward salaries, supplies or office space. All of the time and money is donated by these and other angels.
Now contrast the godly work of Pam and Mike and all the members of this board to what is going on every day in various not-for-profits that we see begging for dollars on cable news shows.
They produce tearjerking commercials that make you want to donate to a good cause to save a child, an animal, a refugee, a veteran, or the planet itself.
Some of them are excellent organizations. But some of them abuse the trust of the donors when the CEOs siphon off mind-blowing amount of monies to pay for their salaries that sometimes edge close to $1 million a year. Just look for yourself at some of the salaries that are publicly posted.
Yael Eckstein-Faras of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews brings in $931,000 a year in total compensation. The CEO of Wounded Warriors collected over half a million dollars in 2024 according to the Paddock Post.
Letting you know this is not meant to detract from some of the work of these organizations that might indeed be noble. But how do we know if an organization has been propped up for the purpose of helping those it claims to look out for, or if, instead, it is a means by which CEOs can earn enormously luxurious salaries under the guise of helping the poor?
We are a capitalistic system and we don’t begrudge people who earn a lot of money. However, these are not-for-profits we are talking about, not JP Morgan.
The CEOs have a legal right to make this money, but we believe that the people donating money to these causes should know where it’s going.
We’ve all heard the stories of people giving money to those soliciting over the phone for a police organization or some group trying to help children. It’s quite disturbing to hear later that 70% to 90% of the money goes to the third-party solicitors who make the phone calls.
Ultimately, it’s a matter of transparency, and the call has to be made by the individual making the donation. But at the very least, you have a right to know which non-profits provide reasonable and fair salaries and those who are using these charities to become millionaires.
There’s at least one charity out there that you can be sure is doing God‘s work with the best of intentions. An organization where everyone “does it for the parents,” as they say, and doesn’t receive a dollar’s worth of compensation.
Every dollar you give to the Rollstone Foundation goes to those families who are saving the lives of these most vulnerable children.