“Money cannot buy what a volunteer gives to many movements and institutions,” Rose E. Matzkin, national president of Hadassah, the country’s largest women’s volunteer organization said yesterday. She was replying to a resolution opposing volunteerism adopted by the National Organization of Women (NOW).
Addressing a national Hadassah membership rally at the New York Hilton Hotel, Mrs. Matzkin said: “Even if the various health, education and social service agencies were adequately funded to provide for sufficient paid staff, the volunteer worker and the private voluntary organization would still be necessary.”
Mrs. Matzkin, who describes herself as a “professional volunteer,” explained that Hadassah’s officers and department chairmen are all full-time unpaid workers. “Because Hadassah is run by volunteers, 96 cents of every dollar contributed goes directly to support our services which include the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center–the largest medical complex in the Middle East; the largest contribution to Youth Aliyah for its 200 children’s villages and day centers; and a variety of rehabilitative and educational services in Israel and the U.S.,” she said.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.