KARS FOR KIDS - What is the real story about this group?

1 877 Kars4Kids SCAM!
Car Donation - Donate Car to Kars4Kids

kars4kids.org
WATCH OUT FOR KARS FOR KIDS

It is an Orthodox Jewish charity.

The catchy jingle advertising Kars4Kids charity began blanketing radio airwaves across the Twin Cities around Thanksgiving. The ditty ends with: "We're a recognized 501(c)(3) charity organization, so you'll receive a maximum tax deduction."

The ad doesn't say that Kars4Kids is recognized for other reasons, such as for failing to disclose the beneficiaries of its car donations.

Kars4Kids is well known to attorneys general in Oregon and Pennsylvania who investigated the charity for leading donors to think the charity benefited a broad group of children, not a "narrow religious purpose."

Kars4Kids, they learned, is the primary funder of a New Jersey organization called Oorah Inc. that provides religious-based services to Orthodox Jewish children. Kars4Kids paid $65,000 in fines in each state in 2009.

Donors curious about what they are funding need to do some digging.

Click on www.kars4kids.org and learn that it has served 5,130 children with "11 unique programs." But nowhere on the home page does it say who these children are.

Only by drilling down will donors learn "Your car donation to Kars4Kids will benefit Joy for Our Youth, an organization dedicated to addressing the educational, material, and emotional needs of disadvantaged Jewish children and their families."

Joy for Our Youth, it turns out, is the legal entity behind Kars4Kids. It has its own website, which requires donors to do more digging to find the connection to Oorah, which is simply described as "a national nonprofit organization."

Oorah and Joy for Our Youth have the same address.

http://www.startribune.com/kar...