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Steven Zeitchik. Follow Us facebook. But the longer it lasted, the more controversy dogged the telethon. People who had muscular dystrophy -- a group of diseases that cause muscles to progressively weaken - and their advocates objected to Lewis treating those with the disease as pathetic victims.
Critics questioned how the Muscular Dystrophy Association was spending the money raised from the telethons. Mike Ervin, a disability rights activist, recently noted that , as a person with muscular dystrophy, he's relieved that this Labor Day will be telethon-free. The Labor Day Telethon, Ervin writes, presented "a damaging narrative that depicted disabled people as nothing more than helpless victims.
It implied that as long as we remain disabled, we have nothing to offer or contribute, that our only hope was a cure By pandering to pity, the telethon nurtured the very stigma of helplessness in which disability discrimination is rooted. Now that it's gone, here's a look back at some telethon facts and figures:.
But this show made Labor Day the annual telethon date for all the years to come. Biggest Telethon Moment: Everybody who watched may have their favorites, from Lewis having emotional meltdowns to guests looking like deer caught in the headlights. MDA leaders had been collecting a much smaller percentage of actual funds from pledges made since , and from through , line items in the company's annual report were troubling.
Specifically, the line item listing the dollar amount and percentage of telethon pledges collected became absent. These figures were absorbed into larger line items, effectively hiding the information. Many problems seem epidemic at MDA, according to Glassdoor reviews from employees, sampled below.
Testimony by staff and executives on Glassdoor. Increasingly, other pledge and collection systems have out distanced the new MDA "telethon. MDA employees also reported that the company maintains 30 National Vice Presidents with 6-figure incomes. Development Coordinator , October : " MDA started cutting services that we were giving to families.
The benefits for employees slowly got worse. It seemed as though the higher ups were only interested in the quickest way to make money instead of helping our families. Development Specialist , September "Stop saying you provide services to families living with muscle diseases, when all you do is cut services, staff, while paying executive salaries.
Executive Director , June "Morally degrading, life consuming, thankless, need a self esteem class to get back on track. Management by fear, everyone comes to work motivated only by the fear that they will be fired. Average tenure is 2 years, and I believe that is a stretch. It's harder and harder to raise funds because the entire model is based on building relationships, but sponsors and donors are so exhausted by having to meet different employees every year, that they are just not engaged any longer and stop giving or cancel events.
While they offer lots of holidays, there is no comp time. So, there are times that I have worked 14 days in a row because of an event and they do not even allow us to come in late or have a day off.
You work until the work gets done and if it takes 10 hour work days, that's what it takes. It wouldn't be so bad if they paid decent, but not only have we not gotten a raise in over 4 years, we were just furloughed for the week of Thanksgiving. There is a revolving door - they cannot keep staff and they are not honest with staff about what the job actually entails time wise.
True that! I am angry over this matter still. An article in the news yesterday shows how MDA has collected smaller and smaller amounts of donations every year in , , , and Other research accompanies will put them out of business within the decade, imo.
I don't care what the reasons were for the ouster. I thinking those behind the scenes and "in charge" are ungrateful people. They don't an ounce of compassion for a person who kept them employed all those years. During - , the MDA "telethon" received far less in pledges than Jerry Lewis had done; and - collections of those were dismal. In , MDA removed the "telethon" line item from financial statements and added it to some other category.
Now, we cannot find out the yearly dollar amount. Fate Therapeutics is making more progress in muscular dystrophy cures than MDA by growing new muscle fibers. An MDA summer camp north of me charges much less for a week, so something is wrong. So, including the costs of high employee turnover, I think there is much waste in the use of MDA pledge funds. Thirty VPs at 6-figure incomes? I think that is absurd. The recipes are left from the original Hub on watching the Telethon and having related cookouts.
That section is cacophonous when we reach it now, deafening in its eerie reminder of shocking losses and wasted pledges. Probably next year, I'll move the recipes somewhere else, but the dissonance still feels right to me at this moment.
It reminds me of Labor Day when Steve Irwin died by stingray wound and someone sold eerie T-shirts with only a stingray on the front. Thanks for adding some clarity to a situation many if us didn't have a clue about, other than he and the telethon just disappeared. I did the annual fundraising walk for ten years. I hope you will expand this hub if the other side if this is ever exposed.
I will admit the recipes at the end did not flow with the honest and informative article at the beginning. Friends have been looking in the TV listings, searching for the MDA telethon, not realizing that there is not to be one this year. I feel the same way. After these months, it feel like the MDA was reluctant to let him continue, because the organization thought he might level harsh criticism on them during the show or the next day in his planned announcements. It was a pre-emptive strike from MDA and I'm sad it happened.
Great article Patty. I enjoyed all f the information imparted about the Telethon and the origin of Labor Day. I also hope Jerry Lewis will disclose his secrets at a press conference. I'm hoping Jerry Lewis will have the press conference after the Telethon, as he had planned.
Thanks for commenting, quotations. A two-hour final telethon send off party would have been OK, with lots of guest stars. I'm sure On the Rocks acapella group would have loved to have been there and made Lewis laugh.
I think that they should have given Jerry a more honorable sendoff, provided he agreed not to embarrass the organization on air by complaining about being forced out.
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