Twin Towers Orphan Fund: With Needs Mounting, Money Issues Loom

The Twin Towers Orphan Fund was created just one day after the September 11 attacks. The charity was the project of

two public-relations experts in California, W. Knox Richardson and Michele Weaver, who wondered, “How many children just lost their parents?”

Within days, they had recruited a group of more than 30 of their peers from around the country to set up and raise the necessary money for a charitable trust fund for the surviving children of parents killed in the attacks.

Five years later, Ms. Weaver, the charity’s president, is wondering what the future will hold. Her assessment is frank: “We have the bulk of the money we’re ever going to receive.”

To date, the charity, in Bakersfield, Calif., has raised more than $7-million to help pay for education and health care for children who lost a parent on September 11.

But the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, which began as a program of a California social-services organization before becoming an independent charity in 2004, has committed itself to serving those youngsters for many years to come. To date, the organization has distributed some $3.5-million to support nearly 700 higher-education savings accounts.

An additional $2.2-million has been allocated to pay for health-care assistance. More than 1,100 children have registered with the charity, including 32 born after the terror attacks took place, and the organization is committed to remain in operation until the youngest of them has graduated from college.

The charity estimates that helping provide the children of September 11 with quality health care and education will cost close to $45-million. The group set an early benchmark of raising $50,000 per child, notes Mr. Richardson, the charity’s chairman of the board. “We plan to remain active, accepting contributions and grants until that time,” he says.

But he concedes that reaching that goal may be difficult.

“With many children’s needs still unidentified, we don’t know how much can still be raised in the current economic and political climate,” says Mr. Richardson. The charity currently has on hand approximately $7,000 per child.

To prepare for the looming financial demands — and an uncertain financial future — the charity is actively seeking donations, including holding a competitive “penny drive” at schools and businesses to mark the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

It is also learning to do more with less. Ms. Weaver notes that less than 10 percent of the money raised is used to cover administrative costs.

“After seven months of funding the organization out of our pockets, we made the decision that 10 percent of what we raised could go for administrative costs,” says Ms. Weaver, the charity’s sole full-time employee. “We’ve actually ended up spending less than that.”

To keep costs low, she notes, the group relies heavily on e-mail and its Web site, rather than the postal service, to communicate with clients and supporters.

“In the end, if I have to volunteer I will,” says Ms. Weaver, of the group she helped create. Before September 11, she helped companies build database applications and establish a presence on the Internet. “I’ll go back to information technology if necessary,” she says.

But even as the Twin Towers Orphan Fund contemplates scaling down its operation, it refuses to scale down its mission, says Ms. Weaver. In addition to helping children who lost a parent on September 11, the charity has also provided assistance to those whose parents died as a result of the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Unfortunately, notes Ms. Weaver, the number of recipients of the charity’s services will probably grow in the future: “We’ve already made the decision that we will also help the children of victims of future terrorist attacks.”