Kars4Kids

Kars4Kids is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status, operating in the United States, Canada and Israel. Kars4Kids takes donations of cars, boats, yachts and real estate, accepting over 40,000 cars annually. In 2018, Kars4Kids reported revenue of $65.6 million and expenses of $59.8 million. ==Work==

Kars4Kids offers financial assistance to students to help pay for private school tuition and GED testing. The organization also sponsors a youth program known as Chillzone, an after-school program teaching Jewish culture and moral values. Additionally, they sponsor the summer camp TheZone, which operates Jewish sleepaway camps in the upper Catskills region of New York State. They also offer small grants to other nonprofit organizations. The organization has hosted giveaways of coats for the needy, including in Newark, New Jersey, where they held a coat giveaway with then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and in Brooklyn, New York, where they worked witih Congressman Ed Towns to give away winter jackets to underprivileged children, including at the Marcy Avenue Houses. Prior to the start of the 2012 school year, Kars4Kids partnered with local government officials to give away backpacks to over 3,000 children in the Queens housing projects, After being contacted by the New York Police Department, the charity auctioned off a 2003 Ford Explorer in which two children drowned after being swept from their mother's arms during Hurricane Sandy. The auction proceeds went to raise money for coats for the needy. Kars 4 Kids worked with United States Representative Michael Grimm to distribute over 1,000 children's coats and other assorted clothing items to Staten Island residents affected by the hurricane.{{cite web ==Ratings==

Kars4Kids receives Charity Navigator's "Needs Improvement" rating of two out of a possible four stars. Guidestar gave them a "gold transparency" marking in 2024 for their cooperation with Guidestar. ==Advertising jingle==

The group's director of public relations stated that the song was written in the late 1990s by a volunteer, with music adapted from Country Yossi's song "Little Kinderlach". The jingle was first used in radio commercials broadcast in the New York City area. By 2004, the ads began to play in other markets such as Chicago, and later nationally as part of radio network ad time. The jingle has become the subject of public ridicule, as critics have considered it to be an annoyance; it was described by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Peter Hartlaub as an "assault on [the] senses". On November 4, 2010, Don Imus was caught on a hot mic mocking a Kars4Kids ad during a commercial break of his radio show Imus in the Morning, telling the group to "go to hell" and jokingly blurting "I'll give you my Bentley, you moron." The 2018 Will & Grace episode "Friends and Lover" featured a parody of the charity known as "Trucks4Tykes", which was portrayed as having a similarly annoying jingle. In the season four premiere episode of The Good Place, "A Girl From Arizona", the jingle is sung by several demons as the anthem of "The Bad Place". A 2018 episode of Last Week Tonight presented a song promoting China's Belt and Road Initiative performed by children, which host John Oliver likened to a "Kommunist Kars4Kids". After moving to a temporary studio in 2020 with a solid white backdrop, Oliver described the new set as being either "the place movie characters go when they've just died, or where they shot the Kars4Kids commercial". He also said the commercial was "the coronavirus of commercials, in that it is horrifically infectious and ruins people's lives". ==Criticism==

The organization has been criticized for inadequately disclosing its Jewish educational work. In 2009, Joy for Our Youth paid $65,000 in fines in Pennsylvania; while Kars4Kids paid $65,000 in fines in Oregonin settlements reached with the respective state attorneys general as a result of their contention that the organization had to state clearly that the beneficiaries were of a "certain religious affiliation". In Oregon, the attorney general added that Kars4Kids failed to disclose that its offer of a "free vacation" for vehicle donors was designed to recruit people to attend timeshare presentations. ==Data breach==

On November 3, 2018, Bob Diachenko, a cyber security researcher, discovered a publicly accessible MongoDB database that contained the emails and personal details of 21,612 Kars4Kids donors/customers plus super administrator password/login details. The database also contained a ransomware note that the files had been stolen and would be returned for bitcoin. ==References==