HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Community Gifts Campaign Kicks Off

By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Enthusiasm was high this past Tuesday as several hundred staff and faculty who will help raise money for the Community Gifts through Harvard Campaign gathered for a kickoff luncheon to hear speakers praise the Harvard community's past performance and urge it on to new levels of participation.

The luncheon was hosted by President Neil L. Rudenstine and Campaign chairman James Rowe, Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs.

Speakers included Rudenstine, Frederick Abernathy, the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering, and Peter Hardie '77, executive director of Roxbury Youthworks.

The Campaign, which has set its fundraising goal at $700,000, is unique among those of large institutions because it allows faculty and staff to make donations to particular agencies or to umbrella organizations such as Community Works, the Massachusetts Foundation for Children, or the United Way of Massachusetts Bay.

This week, Harvard faculty and staff will be receiving envelopes containing pledge cards, Campaign literature, and letters from their local representatives inviting them to make a contribution to a charity of their choice. Employees can write a check or make their contributions through payroll deductions, which can be spread over the entire year.

In his remarks, Rudenstine urged all members of the Harvard community to participate in the Campaign, whatever their level of contribution. High participation, he said, "demonstrates that we're all part of the community, and we really do want to be in this together."

Rudenstine said that with Thanksgiving and the holiday season coming, it is a good time to think about what we need to get through the day and how difficult it can be to obtain the necessities of life if one is living on the margins.

"We at Harvard get so much from our host communities, and this is an opportunity for us to give something back," he said.

Abernathy spoke about growing up during the Great Depression and what that experience taught him about the value of a helping hand. In his case, this included receiving a scholarship to Harvard and a traveling scholarship that enabled him to study in Europe.

"Most of us on the faculty wouldn't be here unless someone had given us a helping hand when we needed it," he said.

Abernathy jokingly advised Campaign representatives to be especially persistent with members of the faculty.

"If you have to deal with difficult faculty members, remember that we have good hearts. Just nag the devil out of us until we return our pledge cards."

Hardie spoke about his agency, Roxbury Youthworks, which provides clinical, outreach, employment training, and referral services to high-risk, court-involved minority youth. He said that his approach is to see at-risk youth not as the problem, but as "victims and symptoms of communities that are not whole."

But while the inner city has many problems, it is not as bad as the image portrayed by the news media, Hardie said.

"The inner cities are not in great shape, but there are a lot of things going on, a lot of resources that we're oblivious to. Some of the poorest communities are rich in other ways."

The Campaign will run through the month of November. For more information, call the Community Gifts through Harvard office at 495-1598.