MADD closing NJ chapters in fund raising crunch - Mothers Against Drunk Driving - Brief Article

Modern Brewery Age, Nov 19, 2001

AP -- Four New Jersey chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving are closing offices because they can't afford overhead, officials said.

Volunteers from those chapters will follow through on events planned this year, MADD state chairman Frank Winters told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Thursday's editions.

Nine chapters will remain open, and the state office in Trenton will handle requests for services from the counties that lost offices.

MADD campaigns to stop drunken driving and underage drinking by lobbying state legislators, holding educational events and speaking with drunken drivers.

The office closings mean the non-profit group, which fields more than 5,000 calls each year, will not be able to handle about 40 percent of requests for service, Winters said.

Winters added that the volunteers from the closed offices pledge to keep their chapters alive. He said the closings were a financial necessity.

The state organization now receives about $132,000 a year from the national organization, down from $216,00 a few years ago.

Teresa Hardt, spokeswoman for MADD's national organization, based in Irving, Texas, said the national funding is meant only to supplement local fund-raising, which has not been strong in the chapters that closed offices.

Like other charities, the national organization has noticed a drop in donations since Sept. 11.

"We didn't expect to get hit as severely and abruptly as we did," Winters said.

The Hunterdon-Somerset chapter vacated its Raritan Borough office Wednesday; the Morris-Passaic chapter's office will soon follow suit. The Camden-Gloucester and Sussex offices have already closed.

The Trenton office was recently downsized and is now run by a part-time director and a volunteer auditor who does the books.