$30M military wreath charity buys solely from its founders' farm (2023) | Hacker News Reader

$30M military wreath charity buys solely from its founders' farm (2023)

militarytimes.com

60 pointsthunderbong10 comments

3 million wreaths for 30 million USD, is that correct? That's still a dubious arrangement, but a sane price and far from the unbounded greed and depravity of some usually large and public corporations.

If the price is sane, I wonder if there is a competitor looking to break into the action, hence the appearance of a piece "asking questions". A great method is to break up the original operation, insert a company that has no compunction about charging higher prices in the name of good process, and clean up.

I just went on Amazon and the wreaths there are like $20-$50. It makes sense that a bulk purchase should be less, so $10 does feel reasonable though I am no expert.

Well it's plain corruption, but yeah it's not like the $10,000 toilet seat cover,[0] $7,622 coffee maker,[1] or $37 screws[2]

[0] https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/07/11/air-force-no...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/20/us/military-price-on-coff...

[2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-...

The cost isn't for the item, it's for the paperwork attesting to the acquisition and delivery of the item.

Whether one screw or 500 screws are ordered, it still takes an hour or two to fill out the forms and submit the invoice.

Think of $37 as the "fuck off" price, except the buyer has no one else to buy from because the seller is the only one meeting FARS/CMMC regulations

Its plainly using a charity as a mechanism to funnel work to the founder's for-profit business, so that the 501c3 is, in fact, organized and operated for the benefit of a private interest, which isn’t merely “dubious”.

Very common to see scammy behavior in charities like "Kars 4 Kids" and even other military charities like Wounded Warriors: "Dozens of former employees reported extravagant spending, including luxury resorts, parties, and excessive travel, with only 50-60% of funds going to programs."

i don't understand this part:

donors who believe their charitable contributions are being spent to maximize the good done, and not to support for-profit ventures.

the money is used to buy or make wreaths. exactly how is that supposed to work at that scale without sourcing from a for-profit venture?

the article suggests that the for-profit part should be sold to someone else. while i get the potential conflict of interest, that's only a conflict if the owners attempt to maximize their profits.

i am willing to bet that if they sell the for-profit part, whoever buys it, will do exactly that: raise prices and maximize profits.

Maybe we donate $30M to actually helping vets who need help.

this is what the va is for , americans pay piles of money in taxes , and still the helping vets scams exist .

Oh!!!!! Those guys! Ok, first, it looks pretty darn impressive when you visit a national cemetery and see all those displayed. So, I am not in anyway knocking those vets who served and died.

But, I remember, Wreaths Across America was trying to build a flagpole in rural Maine, that you could see from outer space. Now, this is starting to look like a tourist exhibit to make money.

I do not want people to make money off our Vets. I want them to help the vets in every way possible. Perhaps a modest amount of money, sure. But, please, no $400K salaries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com