Reply To: Honest Tzedakah

zahavasdad — I don’t love dinners, etc, either for the same reason — so much waste — food that’s often not great, journals no one will look at (there are costs in layout, editing, printing), parking at a hotel no one wants to drive to. If a yeshiva, tzedakah, etc, said we will not cave in to this mishiga’as, and instead will spend donations on legitimate necessary (staff, seforim, etc), then I would hope that more than enough people would say, wow, this is a quality tzedakah to which I would love to give. Perhaps some “advertisement” could still be done. When the R”Y is American for a wedding, for example, perhaps an alum will host a parlor meeting or shiur. This would be a tovah of the alum, the R”Y of course isn’t taking money for it, and gvirim and others can meet the R”Y in a respectful manner, and give to a good cause that makes excellent use of all contributions.