United Jewish Appeal Launches Year-end ‘count Up’ Cash Drive

The United Jewish Appeal has launched a year-end “Count Up for ’81” campaign to collect a total of $310 million in cash by Dec. 31, it was announced by UJA national chairman Herschel Blumberg. “We face a pressing and immediate need for cash to sustain the lifeline of human programs and services that extends to our people in Israel and worldwide,” Blumberg said in announcing the program.

“Our national goal of $310 million by year’s end is a realistic projection of our capacity to give in response to the growing needs of the Jewish people and the rising cost of meeting them,” he said. “It is essential that every Jewish community in the United States make a concerted effort to collect on all unpaid pledges to the 1981 Campaign.”

UJA national cash chairman Edgar Cadden reported that a total of $192.6 million in the regular campaign and $9.8 million for Project Renewal had been forwarded to UJA from community campaigns throughout the country in the first 10 months of 1981. Last year, he noted, cash receipts in November and December totaled $101.2 million. If cash is forwarded at the same rate in 1981, he said, the year-end total will reach $296.6 million, $13.3 million short of the 1981 cash goal.

“We are moving now to mobilize the American Jewish community to meet its commitment to Jews in need around the globe,” Cadden said. “The chronic shortfall in cash has forced drastic cuts in the Jewish Agency budget bringing programs for the young, elderly and settlers in the Negev and Galilee to a virtual standstill. Our partnership with our people is on the line.”

Cadden noted that national UJA resources, leadership and personnel have been made available to communities to assist them in collecting unpaid 1981 pledges, and he pointed out that new tax laws make it advantageous for donors to pre-pay 1982 pledges by Dec. 31.