No fun, just gifts: Fort Worth civic club’s $270,000 Goodfellows donation feeds 10,000
At a downtown Fort Worth civic club notorious for its annual holiday party pranks, the city’s leading businessmen went unroasted this year.
Nobody made any risque jokes. Nobody raced a horse through a Fort Worth Club ballroom. Nobody even made anyone wear a Texas A&M hat.
The 85th annual Exchange Club of Fort Worth charity fundraising party will have to wait until 2021. But hungry neighbors in Fort Worth and Arlington couldn’t wait.
The result: a letter to members with the blunt message “dig deeper” raised $270,000, putting weeks of food on the table for 2,500 families — about 10,000 adults and children — in by far the largest gift toward the $700,000 goal for this 109th annual Goodfellow Fund campaign by Star-Telegram Charities.
Close to 40 percent of the money donated to the Goodfellow Fund each year comes at the club luncheon, when an emcee with the title “chief extractor” cajoles members, lifts their wallets and empties their pockets to raise more money so local families can have Christmas.
This year, the letter from club President Tim Carter and Chief Extractor George Young Jr. simply warned that Young would be “hovering around” any member who didn’t fork over enough cash.
“I’m just proud of this club,” said Carter, president of the Texas Wesleyan University board.
“We didn’t know if we could raise enough money without all the shenanigans and fun. But the members came through.”
The $270,000 is the second-most money the club has ever raised, after a record $300K-plus last year.
Instead of buying children their school clothes, shoes and toys as in recent years, this year the Goodfellow Fund reverted to its Depression-era role: family hunger relief.
A turkey, side dishes and up to 90 pounds of food each was given to 7,000 families overall (28,000 adults and children) in touch-free food pickup lines in Fort Worth on Dec. 15 and Arlington on Dec. 17, with help of the Tarrant Area Food Bank regional agency and Albertsons/Tom Thumb.
“We are proud to help the Goodfellows,” Young said.
“It’s part of the history of our club. It’s the history of Fort Worth — it’s the history of the Star-Telegram.”
Star-Telegram co-founder Amon G. Carter borrowed the Goodfellows idea from Chicago and other newspapers and built the campaign into the region’s largest Christmas charity drive.
The need has only grown along with Tarrant County.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and Goodfellows directors had to change away from interviewing recipients while also raising money in a tough year for charities.
But members such as Young, philanthropists Ed and Lee Bass, investor Luther King and AllianceTexas’ Mike Berry matched their generous past gifts, along with investors Billy Rosenthal, financial executive Rusty Reid, entrepreneur Paul Andrews and investor John Kleinheinz.
Healthcare executive Barclay Berdan chimed in with a donation, too, along with foundation executive J. Neils Agather, energy executive Greg Bird and banker Vernon Bryant.
More remain anonymous.
Carter’s and Young’s letter said that “a simple holiday meal will make a real difference.”
“For those of you that usually have the personal attention of the ‘EXTRACTOR’ both before and at the luncheon, please know that he is ‘hovering around’ out there. ... We all know about the history of the club and what our responsibilities are.”
Young didn’t have to hover.
“Just say that all the usual suspects who always get the shakedown for extra money gave well over $100,000,” Young said.
He had considered borrowing a well-worn, 85-foot 1980s limo and parking it at the house of any reluctant member who didn’t pay up.
“I guess everybody was so relieved that they didn’t have to be threatened that they said, ‘Sure, I’ll write a check,’ “ he said.
For the Goodfellow Fund, the club’s gift showed incredibly generous support at a trying time for the charity, the city and county.
“They’re the reason we can serve so many families,” said executive director Richard Greene of Fort Worth, a Star-Telegram retiree.
They skipped their holiday lunch.
And instead, they helped feed 10,000.
This story was originally published December 24, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
