More for the wealthy

You have a medical crisis. You, your spouse or child has been diagnosed with Leukemia, or some other life threatening disease. What happens next?



Let's say, it is you that is sick. This could be a tremendous burden on your family. With not only the loss of your earnings, but the piling medical bills and co-pays. Even if you have never experienced a situation of grave consequence like this - you can almost feel the weight of my words on your shoulders.



At least I can, as I type this.



Last weekend, we attended a benefit for a person in our community. Someone that is connected through marriage to one of the wealthiest families in our area. And it brought back memories of 2 benefits we attended prior for life threatening issues. Although, those 2 people had more distant connections from the wealth.



Meaning, like us, they know these people, but they weren't married into the blood line at any point.



This most recent benefit, to help the sick persons family while working would not be possible, was huge. I would guesstimate over 1k people attended. Which is huge for my little area. Including some very connected people.



Now, don't get me wrong. We paid over 2x's the value of our tickets and the tickets of all our employees. We didn't walk in to be cheap - we went to help. And in all honesty, we had a fabulous time. How could you not with so much being offered?

• 9 hours of live band entertainment - from multiple bands that were fabulous


• dunk tank, with our favorite county sheriffs, mayor and other folks to finally pay back. :-)


• Food - unbelievable amount of roasted pork.


• Soft Serve Ice Cream Machine


• Silent Raffles - with awesome gifts!


• Life Auction with items like 4 person golf outing with a very famous retired quarter back. It included drinks and food. The package went for almost $2k. Wow. There were many items at this level.


• Unlimited BUD products


• Bud Girls to serve and for the male's eye candy.

I could go on, but you get the idea, this thing was huge. The kind of event that would rival the cities festivities for any organized plan.

I'm connected to these folks and think they are all spectacular. Not by blood mind you. :-) I doubt I could get such a big benefit, if I was the ailing party.

Which got me thinking of the other 2 benefits I attended. They made a decent sum of cash. At the time, I truly believed it to be a huge amount. Now, I know how untrue that thought was.

I guess, the thing that isn't sitting right with me, is the other two needed the help more. They didn't have the family wealth, or self-built wealth. Not that this person isn't worthy, but they were in a better place to start, including better insurance with a government job.

Even in illness, your financial footing may be more in line with who you know and what can be done, then what you deserve. The wealthy sick, get wealthier - the middle class drop to lower class.

Personally, except for the entrance charge for tickets at this event, we dull out an equal amount of cash for all events. We generally, take cash and when the cash is gone, we are done.

I'm just curious - have any of you seen the value of wealth when relating it to charitable functions?