The first Rough Notes-CPIA Society Community Service Award has been presented to Al Singer, president of Singer Nelson Charlmers in Teaneck, New Jersey, for his work in starting and running People Against Children Starving (PACS). Singer, whose insurance agency specializes in professional liability coverages, runs the charity as a cooperative venture with Feed the Children, an Oklahoma-based charity operating since 1979. A $5,000 check from The Rough Notes Company which accompanies the award to PACS will almost pay for one entire semi-tractor trailer truckload of food (34,000 pounds) to be distributed to hungry children in the United States.
When Al Singer learned from a television documentary that 15 million children in the United States suffer from hunger each month, he was stunned. "I couldn't believe that with everything this country produces that children in the United States would have to go to bed hungry," he says.
He decided to do something about it. Although he was willing to contribute money and time, he knew it would take more than that to conquer the problem. He would need to unleash the generous spirit of other people in the insurance business.
So a little over two years ago he created a new charity--People Against Children Starving (PACS)--in cooperation with an established charity called Feed the Children which distributes food to children all over the world. "Larry Jones, president of Feed the Children, agreed to support us," Singer explains. "The idea was to raise money within the insurance industry, and we would use the food distribution network of Feed the Children. All the food would be distributed within the United States."
Singer had his work cut out for him. Even though Feed the Children had arrangements with food companies to provide food at cost, and with trucking companies to distribute it, Singer still had to convince individuals and companies to pay for the food. An entire truckload costs $5,400.
"We made phone calls and mailings to insurance company CEOs and brokers," Al explains. He also participated in a video in conjunction with Feed the Children and distributed it throughout the industry. He made presentations at meetings of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, Intersure, Strategic Coach, and the Professional Liability Agents Network. "It's unbelievable the amount of time it takes," Singer says.
With continued backing from Feed the Children and help from his sons who work with him in the agency, Singer has gradually gotten the word out. The insurance industry has begun to share in Singer's vision of freeing children from hunger. Among the substantial contributors are Orion Capital Corp., Design Professional Insurance Companies, CNA, Reliance National, Strategic Coach and AIG.
In December 1997 People Against Starving Children distributed its first truckload of food in Hackensack, New Jersey. It was followed by food distribution events in Monterey, California, and two others in New York City. When a truckload of food is delivered, it is taken to a variety of local agencies such as Safe Homes, shelters, or food banks, which apportion food according to childhood hunger needs.
"The food drops alone have represented over 125,000 pounds of immediate food aid to hungry children," notes Larry Jones. "And from these food drops alone, the Singer/PACS team has made it possible for almost a half-million people to be fed."
At these food distribution events, Singer does a lot more than just pass out food. He creates a media event, thus promoting future generosity. Local mayors, U.S. senators and members of Congress have made appearances. Country singer Pam Tillis attended a PAC food drop and served as a spokesperson for the PACS video along with other celebrities from the world of entertainment and sports.
"I never thought it would move this far this fast," Singer says. But he makes it clear that PACS will push on to its goal of conquering childhood hunger. "We have another food drop scheduled this month in Teaneck, New Jersey, and another one after that in Indianapolis, Indiana. Also, agents who attended the award presentations are taking the message to insurance companies to try to get further donations."
The Rough Notes Company and the CPIA Society also presented honorable mention awards to four other agents who have performed extraordinary services to humanity.
Helping abused & neglected children
Like Al Singer, Frank Millsaps, who manages an agency in Mobile, Alabama, is deeply involved in helping children who have begun life at a severe disadvantage. While living in Florida, Frank was trained to be a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), making appearances as a citizen volunteer before juvenile court judges to represent the interests of abused or neglected children. Such children may be living at home, in foster care or with relatives.
"When the court is making a decision about a child's future, the social workers, court-appointed attorneys and others appearing before the court are all paid," Millsaps points out. "As volunteers, we are seen as having the complete interest of the child at heart."
Al Singer, left, and Larry Jones, president of Feed the Children, thank the generous contributors to People Against Children Starving. Within two years the insurance industry has given more than 125,000 pounds of immediate food aid to hungry children in the United States.
When Frank and his wife, an attorney, moved to Alabama, they found that no such program existed there. So Frank set out to found one. He convinced the Mobile, Alabama Juvenile Court system to allow the program, and the Seattle-based National CASA Association headquarters to fund it. He applied for a $25,000 grant in 1997, and instead received $50,000 (and another $40,000 in 1999).
Frank has completed his term as treasurer and board member of the CASA Mobile program--a commitment to which Frank gave four to eight hours per week every month, according to the program's local director. "What's satisfying now," Frank says, "is having other people involved in the program and I can return to being a case worker for CASA."
That enables him to directly help children such as three siblings he was assigned to work with early in his CASA Mobile experience.
"The court had intervened with these kids--two boys and a girl, ages 12, 10 and 8," Frank recalls. "The mother had disappeared and they were living with their father who was ill-prepared to be a care-giver. I checked on the progress the kids were making in school and found they were all failing. After talking to the kids I found out they needed extra help in reading. But they couldn't get it at home because their father couldn't read. So the kids, already in a difficult situation, were having their problems compounded at school.
"I arranged for a tutor from a local college to help the kids. Their grades improved, and they all passed into the next grade. We also arranged to get the father into a literacy program, and now he's reading. He also has remarried and is providing a more stable home environment.
"Hey, it's fun," says Millsaps. "It's just doing simple things that so many people in the insurance agency business are well equipped to do."
Improving education system
Leslie R. Jacobs, CPCU, president of The Rosenthal Agency in Metairie, Louisiana, is another agent who wants to give children a good start in life. "My core belief is that a child who doesn't have access to a quality education cannot participate in the American dream," she says. Jacobs recognized that weaknesses in the public education system were denying children that dream, and she set out to do something about it.
Fifteen years ago she began a dialog with an inner city school, helping it establish a pre-school, acquire equipment and pay for an additional teaching position. She also served on a local school board and chaired an education steering committee. In 1995 she was appointed to chair the governor's K-12 Education Transition Team.
The mandate of this team is to develop an accountability program for Louisiana schools, and it seems to be working. ACT and Iowa test scores in the state have improved the last two years. The state's 4th graders were in the top six states in their improvement on the 1998 NAEP Reading test, and the number of third graders reading below grade level has been reduced by one-third.
Jacobs sees her role as an "outsider" among educators to be an asset in improving the educational system. "One of the values I bring is that I think like a business person."
Leslie Jacobs heads an agency that is one of the 100 largest private firms in the United States. Yet she currently puts more hours into her volunteer education efforts than she does into the agency work. Like any successful businessperson she thrives on results. And with the improving academic results in Louisiana public schools, she's also seeing an increasing number of children gain access to their share of the American dream.
Combating economic misfortune
Probably no single factor can have a more immediately negative impact on a community than job layoffs. What does an insurance agent in a town of 43,000 people do when the area surrounding his community loses 17,000 manufacturing jobs? He could simply concentrate on the agency's problems, which are numerous enough under such circumstances. Gerald L. Butts, CPCU, of Moline, Illinois, faced that situation in the late 1980s, but he decided to do more.
He was serving as president of an association of downtown Moline businesses--the Greater Moline Development Corporation (GMDC)--a daunting responsibility considering that half the downtown storefronts were vacant. The sagging agriculture market had taken its toll.
The city's director of economic development suggested the need for a public-private partnership to deal with the area's problems. Butts and another GMDC executive first met with Deere & Co. executives, a leading employer in the area, and received a challenge pledge of $400,000--provided they could raise $2 million from other businesses. To meet the goal, they established a minimum contribution of $15,000, payable over a three-year period. "Some businesses were enthusiastic. Others had to be persuaded," says Butts.
Their venture, called "Renew Moline," gradually gathered momentum, with additional major help from Deere & Co. and the state of Illinois.
"There have been many frustrations but also many successes," says Butts, who served as president of "Renew Moline" during its first three critical years. He continues on its executive committee and chairs another project involving downtown development.
In the 10 years since Renew Moline was launched, the downtown has been transformed. The waterfront area has a new civic center, a Radisson Hotel with a Friday's Restaurant, a regional ground transportation center, the John Deere Health Care Home Office and John Deere Visitors Pavilion, and a restored historic block with shops and restaurants. New construction costs have exceeded $130 million, resulting in more than 1,600 construction jobs and 1,100 full-time and part-time jobs.
Butts, whose agency, the Cleveland Insurance Group, is located in neighboring Rock Island, Illinois, looks back on Moline's progress with pride. "My involvement in the formation of Renew Moline and continuing activities has given me great personal satisfaction."
Volunteering in a small town
Many people who grow up in small towns eventually leave to earn their living somewhere else. Richard A. Lees decided to stay in the town of Pana, Illinois (population 6,000), where he grew up; and in so doing, he is making the town a lot better place in which to live.
Lees, who owns the Lees-Siegert Insurance Agency, was nominated for the CPIA-Rough Notes Community Service Award by another Pana agent, Kay Miller, who has competed with Lees for 15 years. In all of Lees' volunteer activities, says Miller," He has approached each challenge with a smile and determination to give his all."
Pana newspaper publisher Tom Phillips, who has known Lees since childhood, calls Lees' contributions to the community "too numerous to mention." Bank President John Livesay adds, "Richard is one of these rare individuals who would benefit any community tremendously just by being one of its citizens."
Lees has served as a board member and president of the board of Pana's community-owned hospital, co-chaired its emergency room capital campaign and served on the board of the hospital's foundation. One reason the hospital is important to the town, says Lees, is, "It enables elderly people to be treated locally instead of having to drive to a hospital 40 miles away."
Lees served a term as president of the local Rotary Club, and for the last 12 years, has chaired the Rotary's Youth Exchange Program, bringing youth from South America, Europe and Mexico to Pana for a year. Some of the foreign youth have stayed with the Lees family. He also has served on the board of the county mental health association, and this year will co-chair the Downtown Improvement Committee of the Pana Chamber of Commerce. *
Robert N. Kretzmer, a principal of the Dygve-Kretzmer Insurance Services in Chantilly, Virginia, and a past president of the CPIA Society, conceived the idea for the Rough Notes-CPIA Community Service Award. He characterizes it as "long overdue recognition of the literally thousands of brokers, agents and agencies who have implemented selfless acts of service to their own communities."
"All too often," says Kretzmer, "we don't take the opportunity to express our thanks and appreciation for those who volunteer their services for the common good. This year's award winner and our four honorable mention recipients personify our idea of extraordinary service to others ... all wonderful deeds, extraordinary acts, all benefiting less fortunate people--insurance agents at work for others."
The award is intended to become an annual tribute to agents' volunteer activities. A nomination form for the 2001 award will appear in Rough Notes later this year. Kretzmer continues, "We want the awareness of agents' acts of service to grow, not only so others can see the altruistic nature of the industry, but to encourage more acts of service."
©COPYRIGHT: The Rough Notes Magazine, 2000