George C. Chatzopoulos Fund

Its that time of year again,

As you may know, George was a big fan of the Leatherman's Loop, a 10K trail race held at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, NY www.leathermansloop.org.  

He encouraged many of his friends and co-workers to run this tough but fun race. We are running again in his honor.   Please join us! 

On April 14, 2010, WJB Capital's institutional trading desk hosted its 2nd Annual Charity Day and donated all eligible and approved trading commissions directed towards Coaches Vs Cancer, ThanksUSA, The George C. Fund and JEC.

We would like to personally thank WJB Capital for including our fund in this event. We are especially grateful to WJB's Team, its customers, colleagues and friends for supporting us. It is through your generosity, hard work and effort that will help us keep the mission of The George C. Fund alive.

Again, we thank you! 

Board of The George C. Chatzopoulos Fund

On March 14, 2009 we lost a son, brother, friend and truly special human being.  It’s amazing that it’s been a year since George moved on to bigger and better things – sometimes it feels like 10 days and sometimes it feels like 10 years.  I think most of us have spent the last year learning to accept rather than trying to understand why George had to go so soon.  The one thing anyone who knew George can be certain of, is that wherever he is he’s definitely smiling and laughing just the way he always did.

The reaction in the community in the days and weeks after the accident was amazing.  We should all be so lucky as to have as many caring friends as George did.  The genesis of the George C Fund really came out of a need to have an organized way to deal with the outpouring of support from his friends.   Getting the fund up and running took a few months of work but was done just before last summer.

We discovered that running 501c3 organization is a challenge.  We were quite successful in the fund raising aspect of running the fund. 

·         Our first event as an organization was a “trading day” conducted through WJB Capital.  In short, all commissions from trades done with WJB that day were donated to the fund.  Thanks to the help of many of George’s friends working in the financial sector, the trading day was a huge success and we raised close to $200,000 on that day alone. 

We will be doing another trading day this April 14th so please contact us if you or anyone you know would like to participate. 

·         Our second event of the year was a golf outing.  It was another successful event which raised over $10,000.  It was a ton of fun and a chance for many of George’s friends to get together and catch up. 

·         Our third source of funds last year came from extremely generous individual donations made by George’s network of friends.  

The more challenging part of running our organization turned out to be distributing funds.  There are so many tremendous organizations and causes out there that it’s mindboggling. 

·         In the aftermath of the accident, a natural place to turn was to surfing related causes.  We hooked up with a group called Surfer’s Healing and funded 3 surf camps for autistic children.  It was amazingly gratifying to see something great come out of a tragic event.   

·         We made a donation to the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey.  The Greek Orthodox Church was a big part of George’s life and played an important role for George’s family in the days after the accident.  

·         We made a donation to the Ronald McDonald House of New York and have had discussions with them on how we could collaborate in the coming years. 

We will keep to our broad goals of doing good for humanity in George’s name and hope we can do it with a fraction of George’s enthusiasm.  We look forward to working with and seeing as many of you as possible in the coming months.

Warm Regards,

www.georgecfund.org

On November 7th, Mia Strazzella will be participating in a race in central park to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. She will represent the George C Fund. If you have a child that may be interested in joining the race on behalf of the George C Fund, please follow the link below and become part of the George C Fund Team. 

 https://www.rmdh.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=380&frsid=70

The RMDH houses children with cancer and their families. Its a truly amazing place. Check out the link for more details.

Any money your child raises, will be matched by the George C Fund.

https://www.rmdh.org/Page.aspx?pid=196   

Feel free to contact Rocco Strazzella at rstrazzella@wjbcap.com or Catherine.Chatzopoulos@gs.com with questions