Assistance League of East Valley proudly presented the Operation School Bell^® award to Michael A. Pollack on October 21, 2016 at the Grand Opening of our new Thrift Shop.  Mr. Pollack is a well-known philanthropist in the Phoenix Metro area.

Our major fundraising strategies for Operation School Bell are grants and the proceeds from sales from our Thrift Shop. In our 14 years at our previous Thrift Shop location Mr. Pollack has enabled us to raise enough money to have a successful Operation School Bell program.  However, sales leveled out, thus limiting our ability to better serve our current clients and restricted us in broadening our Operation School Bell outreach.

After months of planning, we recently moved to a beautiful, larger Thrift Shop facility (located in Chandler on Alma School Road north of Warner) with Mr. Pollack as our benefactor and landlord.  He renovated the building with the conservative value of his donation at $100,000.  This included the cost of lost rent for one building, free use of space for temporary storage of furnishings, architectural services, demolition, three full page ads in the local paper and much more. He also encouraged the sub-contractors to give us favorable nonprofit bids.

Mr. Pollack understands that publicizing our brand is critical for us to achieve our goals of serving more children. He underwrote the expenses of his public relations firm to help our chapter create a media plan.

When we expressed our amazement and appreciation for his generosity he replied:
“I‘m glad to be able to do what I can do, so that you can do what you do so admirably for our community.”