The Detroit Bureau

GM CEO Dan Akerson will auction off his 1958 Corvette to raise money for Habitat for Humanity.

Want to buy a Corvette? No, not the new C7 Chevrolet Corvette that made its splashy debut at the North American International Auto Show this past week.

The one going on the auction block at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Friday has a bit more miles on the odometer, though it appears the relatively rare ’58 ‘Vette is in excellent condition.  It also happens to be the personal car of Dan Akerson, CEO of Chevy’s parent, General Motors.

The sale will be used to raise money for Habitat for Humanity, according to the maker, the proceeds specifically earmarked for the restoration of the Morningside Commons neighborhood not far from GM’s headquarters along the Detroit River.  Akerson has reportedly already given Habitat about $1 million of his own money during the past year.

If you’re really desperate to get one of the new 2014 Corvettes, however, you can bid on the first of the seventh-generation models, the so-called C7, a day later, also at the Barrett-Jackson Auction. And like Akerson’s first-generation two-seater, proceeds will also be donated, in this case to Detroit’s College for Creative Studies.

“I love the car,” Akerson, a Naval Academy graduate who joined GM, initially as a board member, following its 2009 bankruptcy. But he says it could be “better purposed” auctioning it off for charity.

Akerson’s Corvette is a first-generation model that, GM notes, “featured a 245-horsepower V-8 and included new body and instrument panels and new upholstery. External highlights included dual headlamps – a Corvette first – and twin chrome trunk spears. Chevrolet built 9,168 Corvettes for the 1958 model year, but only 510, or just over 5 percent, were painted Regal Turquoise. Akerson’s Corvette is a hardtop convertible and is considered scarce among remaining 1958 models.”

Based on a study of 173 auctions of 1958 Chevy Corvettes by website ConceptCarz.com, the average sale price was $92,796, but the figure has soared as high as $346,500. Being in great shape and one of the rarer versions of the ’58 ‘Vettes, Akerson’s might normally be expected to push into the upper part of that range – at the very least – once the gavel goes down.

The Barrett-Jackson Auction is known for building up a frenzy of bidding on charity projects, especially for unique, one-off and first-off-the-line models like the 2013 Corvette 427 Convertible that went for a cool $600,000 last year.  (It raised money for AARP’s Drive to End Hunger program.)

In mid-2012, another Barrett event got $300,000 for the first of Chrysler’s new SRT Viper sports cars.

The auction of the 1958 Corvette is scheduled to begin around 7:30 p.m. Friday.

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Courtesy Sunshine Cleaning Systems

Cleaning service worker Patrick Morgan, second from left, was honored for his honesty Wednesday, in front of airport officials, his bosses, colleagues and the media.

A cleaning service worker at a Florida airport found an iPad – with $13,000 stuffed in its case – and turned it in. He then gave away the small reward he got from the owner to two people in need.

But that honesty and kindness paid off for Patrick Morgan, who was honored in a recognition ceremony Wednesday, NBCMiami.com reported.

Back in December, Morgan had spotted the lost iPad and hefty sum of cash when he was working an early shift at Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

"I opened it first, and I saw all the money, and I quickly closed it back up," said Morgan, of Patrick's Cleaning Service.

Just minutes after Morgan alerted authorities about his discovery, the panicked iPad owner returned and gave Morgan $60 as a reward. Morgan then gave away some of the $60 to a homeless woman at the airport and the rest to a struggling cleaning employee.

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To honor that honesty, the Broward County Aviation Department in Florida presented Morgan with a gift and plaque on Wednesday. His employer, Sunshine Cleaning Systems, also gave him $625, equivalent to a week of paid vacation, according to NBCMiami.com. This time, he said he'll keep the money, NBCMiami.com reported.

"Patrick is such an outstanding and honest person," Larry Calufetti, president of Sunshine Cleaning Systems, said in a statement. "What he did speaks volumes about his personality."

Morgan was reportedly brought to tears during Wednesday's ceremony: "It’s just a good feeling to know that I returned it and that's the bottom line. I wasn't looking for anything."

NBCMiami.com's Julia Bagg contributed to this story.

Starpix, Dave Allocca / AP

In this image released by Starpix, Bruce Springsteen and the E street Band perform at 12-12-12 The Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden in New York on Dec. 12.

NEW YORK — Charities in New York state have collectively raised more than $400 million for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, the state's attorney general said Thursday.

A survey of 88 nonprofit groups by Eric Schneiderman's office found that as of mid-December, the fundraising for storm victims had been dominated by five charities, led by the American Red Cross, which had raised $188 million, the Robin Hood Foundation, which had taken in $67 million and The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, which collected $45 million.

The Empire State Relief Fund raised another $15.4 million and The Salvation Army's eastern U.S. division raised $14.3 million.

Obama calls on Congress to act on Hurricane Sandy relief

Donors can log on to the attorney general's website to see how those organizations and 83 others say they intend to spend that money.

Schneiderman said regulators will be following up with the groups to get more information about the services they have provided.

"The generosity of the public and the hard work of charities in response to Hurricane Sandy is inspiring. As we continue to monitor charitable activities related to Sandy relief, it is essential that nonprofit organizations operate in the most transparent way possible," he said in a statement.

The list of groups that responded to the survey included small groups who recruit volunteers to gut damaged homes, food banks and agencies that distribute medication.

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The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, named for a firefighter killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, said it had raised $4 million as of Dec. 5, and anticipated spending $2.5 million of that money giving home supply store gift cards to people with damaged homes.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which had been involved in rescuing animals from flooded neighborhoods, and then boarding hundreds of displaced animals, said donors had given it $1.3 million by the end of November.

Red Cross officials told the attorney general that as of Dec. 10, the organization had distributed more than 8.7 million meals and snacks in the disaster zone, provided 81,000 shelter stays and distributed $30 million in relief supplies. The Red Cross said it anticipated that it would have spent $110 million on the storm response by the end of December.

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Stan Honda / AFP - Getty Images file

New York City's Central Park covers 843 acres.

Calling it the largest donation ever to a park in the U.S., New York City on Tuesday announced that hedge fund billionaire John Paulson had donated $100 million to the nonprofit that maintains Central Park.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Paulson and others at a ceremony at the park's Bethesda Fountain Tuesday morning.

"Central Park is the most deserving of all of New York’s cultural institutions," Paulson told reporters. "And I wanted the amount to make a difference. The park is very large, and its endowment is relatively small."

The donation will go to the Central Park Conservancy, which in 1998 took over maintenance of the park's 843 acres.

The park's endowment is at $144 million. Its annual operating budget is around $46 million, and the conservancy provides 85 percent of that.

Half of Paulson's donation will go to the endowment, half to capital improvements.

Paulson has been a member of the conservancy's board since June, the New York Times reported.

With a personal net worth estimated by Forbes at $12 billion, Paulson made his biggest profit in 2007 by betting the U.S. housing market would slump. When it did, triggering the recession, his correct bet netted him an estimated $4 billion.

Last year, however, his main funds had double-digit percent losses from premature bets on a strong economic recovery. 

Paulson, 56, and his family will have a birds-eye view of the improvements -- they have a Fifth Avenue apartment facing the park's east side and overlooking its reservoir, BusinessWeek reported.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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LA HABRA, Calif. -- When Max Igoe was 5 years old, breast cancer claimed the life of his mother's best friend, 37-year-old Beth Rorman. The little boy found himself expressing his pain with the kind of idea only a kindergartner might conceive: a lemonade stand.

"It's just the first thing that popped into my head," said Max, now 14.

Nicki Igoe, Max's mother, said her son was aware her friend was sick.

"He knew that she had something called cancer," she recalled. Rorman battled the illness for some 10 years.

Max told his mom he would set up a lemonade stand near their La Habra home, and raise money for breast cancer research. Maybe even help them discover a cure.

"I explained to him that it wasn't the olden days. That people don't buy lemonade from peoples' driveways like they used to," Nicki said.

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But she didn't want to hurt his feelings, either, not while he was mourning "Auntie Beth's" loss. So she helped him mix some juice, prop up a table and hand-print some signs.

This weekend, they will set up Max's stand for the ninth year in a row after years full of hundreds of gallons of pink sweet liquid, numerous raffles, "casino-night" fundraisers and days of labor.

Max has exceeded his wildest dreams: "We've raised over $80,000."

His goal? "A million dollars." And a cure.

Nicki said after every sale, they ask him if he wants to continue, and his answer for the last nine years has been the same: Yes.

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This has been a summer of oppressive weather, political infighting and tragic violence, but it's also been a summer -- perhaps surprisingly, given the heated news -- for generous tips.

In July, Aaron Collins, a 30-year-old from Kentucky left a dying wish to his family: He wanted them to leave a waitress a $500 tip. Before he died on July 7, he told relatives that he had wanted to eat pizza and leave a big tip but didn’t have the money, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The family left that generous tip and has started giving $500 tips once a week in honor of Aaron. Money for the tips come from donations to an online nonprofit set up by the family.

Now, unrelated to the Collins’ tip mission, is the story of Kristen Ruggiero, a waitress from Cranston, R.I. who received $458 on a $42 check. Ruggiero has been a waitress at Uncle Tony’s Pizza and Pasta restaurant for 15 years.

"I thought it was a mistake," Ruggiero told the Providence Journal. These were new customers, she told the Journal, who had ordered one large pizza, a Marc Anthony hot sub sandwich, a large salad and a pitcher of beer.

A month later, the couple returned to the restaurant – and Ruggiero approached, ready to return the money in case they had left the five $100 bills by mistake.

But the man at the table assured her that it wasn’t a mistake and that she deserved the money.

Video of Seth Collins, Aaron Collins’ brother, giving $500 to a server in New York: 

The San Antonio Area Foundation has partnered with a scholarship from Metropolitan State University of Denver to honor Jessica Redfield Ghawi, who was killed in the deadly theater shootings in Aurora last month.

The scholarship has raised $45,000 so far and will benefit aspiring sports journalists. The San Antonio Area Foundation said in a statement that it would manage the scholarship, which it would award to students across the U.S.  

Ghawi was from San Antonio but had moved to Colorado to save money and attend school to become a sports broadcaster.

"Jessica chased her dreams," said Jordan Ghawi, Jessica’s brother and scholarship co-founder. Her mother, Sandy Phillips, is the other founder. "Our hope is that this will inspire others to do the same."

www.farrahsoudani.com

The Farrah Soudani Fund website was set up by her family to raise money for a disability trust for the woman who was wounded in the Aurora, Colo. theater shooting.

In the days following the deadly shootings in Aurora, Colo., two sites soliciting donations were created for Farrah Soudani, a 22-year-old whose spleen and kidney were removed after she and dozens of others were shot in a movie theater during the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.”

The first was set up on gofundme.com by a friend of Soudani’s mother who pledged that all the money would go to Soudani. By Thursday evening, the site had raised more than $143,000.

But Soudani’s family on her dad's side worried about where that money would end up. They didn’t know this woman well, her brother Jordan Soudani said. Marty Soudani, a business owner, argued that a disability trust should be set up for his younger cousin, to protect her from creditors.

“We don’t know if that fund is going to go 100 percent to her,” Marty Soudani said. A trust would be more secure, he said; if Soudani, who does not have health insurance, went bankrupt, he said, creditors wouldn’t be able to touch the trust money, which could help to cover long-term care.

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The Soudani family, which has raised about $10,000 for the Farrah Soudani Fund, has asked those handling the gofundme.com site to transfer the donations to the trust. But so far, the family said, they have remained noncommittal. Those handling the gofundme.com site did not reply to a message from NBC News sent through the donation site.

Victoria Albright, who manages the site, responded to skeptics in an online post: “I will see that these funds are never manipulated, or land in the wrong hands. This is ALL about Farrah and her recovery. Promise!”

“We’re not saying they’re thieves,” Marty Soudani said, “but they’re not working with the family.”

Soudani isn’t alone in being wary of outsiders’ zeal to raise money.

Ken Berger — president and CEO of Charity Navigator, a non-profit charity watchdog group — told NBC’s Technolog that he advises caution.

gofundme.com

A website set up by a friend of Soudani's mother has raised more than $143,000.

"Disasters are a time when people run into a situation where they, to some degree, are flying blind because the charities they know — the ones they typically give to — may not be providing services in the area,” Berger said. “So it's a time that scammers are likely to prey on people.”

Anticipating this, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper encouraged people to give through GivingFirst.org, which raised nearly $2 million by Thursday. There, donors can choose a specific nonprofit – Aurora Mental Health Center or Denver Center for Crime Victims, for example – or ask that their money go wherever deemed necessary. The University of Colorado Hospital Foundation has also solicited donations for a 7/20 Victims Fund to help cover the care of those shot in the early hours of July 20.

Still, for those whose loved ones remain hospitalized, their bills soaring, raising money through sites such as PayPal or wepay.com has immediate appeal. A fund for Caleb Medley, who was in a medically induced coma while his wife gave birth to their son, Hugo, had $330,000 by Thursday evening. Medley does not have health insurance, according to the site.

The site says Medley and his wife “need help covering their medical bills (which will no doubt be in the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars), cost of living, baby supplies, and maybe even a college fund for Hugo! They need our help!”

But officials warn that a significant influx of cash could mean the victims are no longer eligible for certain social services, such as Medicaid, which covers long-term care for low-income people.   

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“If you give to an individual, it’s not tax deductible and it can affect the long-term security of those folks,” said Dana Rinderknecht, manager of online giving at GivingFirst.org. “They can lose some services.”

Rachel Reiter, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, emphasized that Medicaid is determined on a case-by-case basis but said income is one of the factors considered.

Reiter said state workers are helping families figure out if they qualify for aid, particularly if they have long-term needs. Medicaid helps to cover the medical care of families, children, pregnant women and people with disabilities -- particularly those with long-term care needs.  

“Giving through a nonprofit is strongly encouraged,” Reiter said in an e-mail. “For individuals who are disabled, excess funds may be placed in a Disability Trust and the funds would not be counted against the individual. We have staff working with the hospitals and families where this may be an option.”

Christine Handel, a Soudani family friend who helped to create the trust site, described raising money in the wake of such a tragedy as “navigating a minefield.”

“There’s no road map for this when these things happen,” Handel said. “It’s not that people have bad intentions – they don’t have knowledge. We don’t want Farrah to worry about tax season next year. She needs to go to her appointments and see her doctors and get better.”  

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — When the wind pushed the Waldo Canyon blaze over the crest of the mountains toward this community one week ago, young business owners and designers here set out to raise money for the victims.

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Follow Kari Huus on Twitter and Facebook.

"There was a real feeling of helplessness," says one of the initiators, Tucker Wannamaker, who owns a small marketing firm. "You just wanted to do something."

The goal was to design and sell enough T-shirts to raise $1,500, which they figured was more than they could donate if they each wrote a check.

Wild Fire Tees

But they miscalculated — by 21,300 percent. With the aid of social media, online orders for their artfully designed Wild Fire Tees generated $320,000 within six days. They said they plan to donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the food bank Care and Share and the Colorado Red Cross, two organizations at the heart of the relief operation here.

They quickly realized they couldn’t handle the volume of printing in house, so they looped in a local T-shirt shop to help, and now are arranging larger-scale production in Denver, said Wannamaker.

Now the group -- a dozen or so business owners and designers, along with assorted partners and babies in tow -- are hunkered down, vetting new designs and answering calls for orders while working out the logistics of delivering the goods. 

Red Cross volunteers in the trenches for wildfire in Colorado

Orders even came from Canada, Denmark and Britain, Wannamaker says, with a huge spike of orders right after the majority of houses were destroyed last week.

One of the latest ideas is for people to donate money for T-shirts that are to be given to firefighters as tokens of appreciation. Wild Fire Tees has sold 650 of them – well on their way to 1,000 orders needed to outfit the entire army battling the blaze.

4 dead in crash that grounds firefighting C-130s 

The sudden volume of money coming in for T-shirts set off alarms at PayPal and set the little group scrambling to complete registration of their nonprofit with the federal government — a headache, one of the team says, but a good problem to have.

Wild Fire Tees has adjusted their fundraising goal, to $500,000 for distribution to wildfire relief statewide.

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GARLAND, Texas -- High school students have raised $10,000 for the family of a convenience store clerk, known as "Grandma" to many in the Garland community, who was set on fire during a robbery attempt.

Nancy Harris, 76, died Friday night, nearly a week after the attack at the Fina gas station where she worked in South Garland.

On Saturday, students from South Garland High School returned to the place of the attack to hold a car wash and raise money for her family.

Read the original report at NBCDFW.com

"I was just devastated. Its kind of outlandish that someone would go out of their way to do this," said Dylan Stooksberry, president of the school's student council. "To have that happen to someone who you know, to a face that you know, to a friend, it's devastating." 

"It hurts deep down and honestly if someone is going to go out of their way to do something bad like that, I am going to go out of my way to do something nice," said Stooksberry.

The Fina gas station is just a block from their school. Many students, like DJ Valderrama, personally knew Harris.

"I came in the gas station and she showed me so much kindness by giving me a free drink," Valderrama said. "Whenever somebody shows you that kind of kindness if affects your life, really."

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Despite the tragedy on Sunday at the Fina gas station, many students told NBC 5 that the incident has brought the community closer together.

Many hoped this fundraiser will help honor Harris.

"I know Ms. Harris is looking down on us right now, I know she is happy," said Valderrama.

Matthew Johnson is charged with attempted capital murder in connection with this case. Those charges could be upgraded because Ms. Harris has died.

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courtesy Hawkins family

Former British Royal Marine Ed Hawkins was seriously injured in Afghanistan in 2010. He left hospital last year and is currently on a work placement.

LONDON -- Fisher House, the Maryland-based charity which provides overnight accommodation for families visiting hospitalized military members, is expanding onto foreign soil for the first time with a facility for British troops.

Construction has begun on a $6.8-million building with 18 en-suite rooms that will allow relatives to stay close to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where the U.K.'s most seriously wounded military personnel are treated.

As well as providing servicemen and women a place to relax away from hospital wards, it will have communal living space including a family room, play area, lounge and kitchen and a private garden.

Fisher House, which was founded during the first Gulf War in 1990, has more than 50 projects in the U.S., as well as others located on American bases in Germany. However, this is its first truly international venture.

'Unique American model'
Talk show host and former U.S. Marine Montel Williams and the charity’s chairman, Ken Fisher, attended a ground-breaking ceremony at the site.

Courtesy Fisher House

Montel Williams at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Fisher House project at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, on April 23.

"This is a great honor for Fisher House, as we share with our British brothers and sisters our unique American model for caring for military families," Fisher said.

"This will be a sanctuary for the people who need it most: those who have made deep personal sacrifices – whether on the battlefield or on the home front – to keep us safe.  We thank them even though we know it will never be enough."

Almost 10,000 British troops are in combat alongside 90,000 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. Figures from Britain's Ministry of Defence, collated by The Guardian newspaper, show 832 have been seriously wounded since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001.

Many families travel for hundreds of miles to be by their loved ones' bedside -- sometimes for weeks at a time, because of the need for months or even years of surgery and rehabilitation. Military accommodation exists for family members but only six bedrooms are available at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Sue Hawkins, whose son Ed was almost killed by an improvised explosive device while on a patrol in Afghanistan in May 2010, said the new facility would "be a great source of comfort, particularly at a time when families are surrounded by so much uncertainty."

The blast killed his corporal and seriously wounded Ed, who was serving with the Royal Marines. He was flown back to Birmingham for several months of treatment.

"When we were told about Ed, we just left for the hospital," Sue Hawkins told msnbc.com. "We had no idea how long we would be there or even if he would survive. I can remember everything about that day, because of the shock, but that last thing you have time to think about it is planning where to stay."

Five-hour round trip
Faced with a daily five-hour round trip from their home in Hampshire, Sue and her husband Michael spent many nights across the road from the hospital in a former nurses' accommodation block, before moving to the military facility – a converted house in a residential street.

"There were times when Ed became very distressed and we were able to reach him quickly when the hospital called," she said. "That sort of comfort and care is very important. We know first-hand how important it is to have a 'home from home' in difficult, emotional and challenging times. Fisher House truly is a massive step in the best direction possible.”

Ed Hawkins, who is now 26, left hospital last year and is currently on a work placement.

British soldier Nick Gibbons, who lost a leg in a bomb in Afghanistan in 2008, also attended the ground-breaking ceremony on April 23. He told ITV News: "It's what you need really, your family around you. Facilities like this are great because it not only allows the family to stay here, it gives you a better relationship with your family. It's a stressful time. The last thing you want is them travelling."

Fisher House has contributed $2 million to the project, with the rest of the building cost provided by U.K. veterans' charity Help for Heroes, whose high-profile supporters include Prince Harry. It will be operated by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Charity and funded by Help for Heroes when it opens next year.

President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have previously made a sizeable donation to Fisher House, which also operates a Hero Miles Program that uses donated frequent flyer miles to bring family members to the bedside of injured service members. 

Montel Williams told the Birmingham Mail that he was a regular visitor to Fisher House sites in the U.S., cooking meals for soldiers and their families. "I'll definitely be coming to Birmingham to do the same," he told the newspaper. "I'll bring my sister and my chef with me and we'll rustle up things like crab cakes and fish. It'll be real American-style cooking."

Msnbc.com's David Arnott contributed to this report.

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