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After making a fortune in the garment industry, George McDonald founded the Doe Fund, a New York-based non-profit organization dedicated to housing the homeless, offering them jobs, and setting them on a course to independence and self-respect.
'To whom much is given...'
George McDonald was born in 1944 to an Irish Catholic family in the eastern state of New Jersey. At Catholic school, he learned the importance of service to others. He still quotes his teachers, who often said, "to whom much is given, much is asked."
When McDonald was 12, he started to work for himself, collecting discarded beer and soda cans on a nearby beach and redeeming them for coins at a local grocery store. He says this was a life lesson in the rewards of personal initiative and hard work.
"That showed me right away that, in America, no matter who you are, if you want to take personal responsibility and work hard, the sky's the limit. I was really impressed by that."
After a stint in college studying political science and business, McDonald set out to make his fortune in clothing trade. "So I came to New York, and I made a lot of money. There were great days, wine, women and song, and I had a lot of fun. But after spending $200 on dinner, and stepping over homeless people in the doorway when I left, it made me question the value of what I was doing. Is this what I want to do with my life? Pile up little pieces of paper? Money? It didn't make me feel good about myself."
From business to hands-on advocacy
In 1980, McDonald left his business and went to work for Senator Ted Kennedy's unsuccessful presidential campaign, then later ran for the Congress himself, mostly on a platform to end homelessness. When he lost that election, he became an advocate for the homeless, lobbying city officials and foundations to help. He also went to work feeding the homeless. He spent 700 consecutive nights serving them food.
"During that process, I came to know individual homeless people. I saw there wasn't anything different about them other than their circumstances and lack of opportunity. Basically that's why we put together the Doe Fund to help these people who somehow were on the margins, left behind and didn't have any opportunity."
McDonald started the Doe Fund in 1985, an economically depressed time in New York when urban decay was on the rise.
The city owned thousands of vacant and derelict apartments it hoped to renovate and sell off to help the city's budget and promote home ownership. McDonald bid for a contract for homeless men to do that work in exchange for a decent wage. Meanwhile, the Doe Fund would house the men in buildings they had renovated themselves. From the start the project was a "win-win."
Times of crisis
By 1990, more than 70 formerly homeless men had meaningful jobs and a place to live. But a crisis hit in 1993, when city budget cuts caused the program to be slashed. It seemed that most of the men may have to go back to living on the streets. It was at that point that McDonald hit upon an idea: buy the men bright blue uniforms with a "Doe Fund" logo and an American flag patch, give them a broom and a pail, and send them out into the neighborhood to clean those streets.
"The citizens would walk up to them and ask them what they were doing. And when our guys explained it to them, they would come and literally put money underneath our door at the office. Because neighborhood residents appreciated two things: the streets were getting cleaned, and in those days, the streets were pretty dirty, and our guys were cleaning themselves up and their lives, at the same time. They were becoming productive, contributing, taxpaying citizens. Who wouldn't like that? That really was a key moment in our history. Our backs were up against the wall, we had no place to turn but to ourselves, and we did and we solved the problem. And that's the Doe Fund philosophy."
By 2010, the group had generated over $650 million in revenues and graduated over 4,000 program participants, each of whom had his own place to live, paid for with wages earned from his own job.
Taking aim at the root causes of homelessness
McDonald believes that helping the homeless may be a simple matter, but the causes of homelessness are complex. One cause, he believes, is the persistence of racism. Blacks are incarcerated at a rate far exceeding whites, and when they are released from prison, they often become homeless, and commit desperate crimes that land them back in jail. These days, McDonald is absorbed in the problem of how to help ex-offenders re-enter society in a dignified and productive way.
"I think that's the civil rights issue of our time," he says. "I don't know how much time God is going to give me but I want to use every one of the days to bring attention to the solutions to this problem. I am committed to that."
Due to a weakened economy and other factors, homelessness is on the rise in America, and the Doe Fund has seen a surge in applicants in New York and for other American cities where has offices.
When life will improve is anybody's guess, but this much seems certain: George McDonald will do everything in his power to make sure that all citizens get both the respect and the opportunity they deserve.
stint: a period of time that you spend working somewhere or doing a particular activity 從事某項工作（或活動）的時間
derelict: (especially of land or buildings) not used or cared for and in bad condition（尤指土地或建筑物）荒廢的；被棄置的；破舊的
pail: 提桶
incarcerate: to put somebody in prison or in another place from which they cannot escape（監(jiān)禁；關押；禁閉）
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（來源：VOA 編輯：陳丹妮）
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