Ira Riklis and Important Charities

Ira Riklis and his wife Diana became supporters of the EMUNAH Bet Elazraki Children’s Home shortly after his first visit there to attend the Bar Mitzvah of the son of a close friend. They’ve remained so ever since. The home is truly a home for some 180 children ranging in age from 4 to 18. These children come from dysfunctional families with histories of violence home, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, mental illness and abandonment. They come to the home in a variety of ways. Some are placed there by the Ministry of Social Services, other by social workers who feel the offers the best chance of breaking the cycle of distress in their lives. Some are even brought in by the police.

The home’s ultimate goal is to help each child placed in their care grow into an emotionally and physically healthy young adult able to function and be a productive member of society. The objective is to shatter the vicious cycle of their lives, which often run through multiple generations, so they will be the last in their family to need such placement. During his time as a supporter, Ira Riklis has witnessed the great love and care the home gives to its children.

Kids around the country love to get out and ride their bicycles during the long, warm days of summer. And caring parents want to make sure their children are riding safely. But now that September’s here and summer vacations are over, there can be a tendency to let down our guard about bicycle safety. Ira Riklis knows that that’s a bad idea. True, kids are riding less, but the risk of injury or death is still very real.

Consider that children are more likely to die from motor vehicle-related bicycle crashes at non-intersection locations during the months of April through October (80 percent) and between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (65 percent). The consider the fact that children ages 14 and under are nearly four times more likely to be injured riding in non-daylight hours (e.g., at dawn, dusk or night) than during the daytime. Ira Riklis first became concerned about these issues back in 1993 when a child safety organization asked for his support in providing local children with bicycle helmets. He did so readily, purchasing 5,000 helmets to be properly fitted and given away. Since then, he’s become a strong advocate for child safety and likes to remind us that even though Fall is here, we all still need to protect our heads.

Those of us who have achieved any sort of success in life can look back to someone who served as a friend or mentor who helped us along the way. If we’re lucky, we may have been blessed with several people who’ve played such a role at various times in our lives. For Ira Riklis, one such person was Dr. William Zucker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business who passed away in 2006.

Dr. Zucker became more than just a teacher to Ira Riklis,

he also became an important mentor and a life-long friend. It was in honor of their deep relationship that Mr. Riklis recently funded the Dr. William Zucker Entrepreneurial Intern Fellowship. The program provides paid summer internships for excep

tional students then encourages them become to Entrepreneurial Ambassadors by passing on what they’ve learned to other students. It’s a fitting tribute to a great man whose classes on entrepreneurship helped launch many successful careers.

Labor Day, the holiday that marks the symbolic end of summer, is just around the corner. As on most long holiday weekends, people will be out on the roads, driving to the coast or the mountains, heading to a cookout, or a ballgame, trying to enjoy one last summer outing before the days turn cool and the nights grow longer. And like anytime when lots of folks are out driving, there’ll be the predictable rash of traffic accidents and injuries. Ira Riklis urges caution on the roads, and also urges people to consider finding some time over the next couple of weeks to donate blood.

Why now at this particular time? Two reasons. First, a single car accident victim can require as many as 100 units of blood, which makes the need for blood even more acute than at other times. Second, summer (and winter) holidays are typically the times when hospitals and clinics face the most serious blood shortages. For a businessman such as Ira Riklis, it’s a simple, but deadly, equation: high demand and short supply can lead to unnecessary deaths. To help balance the scales, he makes it point to donate blood several times a year and encourages others to do the same.

That sobering headline summarizes the disturbing estimate of the Nutrition Screening Initiative. Other statistics bear out the sad truth. It’s estimated that up to 55% of elderly Americans admitted to hospitals are malnourished. And across the country, nearly five million people over the age of 60 do not get enough to eat. Facts like these led Chef James Beard, food critic Gael Greene and cookbook author Barbara Kafka to launch the nonprofit CityMeals-on-Wheels in 1981. And once he learned the startling truth from his friends, Ira Riklis was quick to sign on as a supporter of the group.

Now, nearly thirty years later, he’s still involved. The group’s efforts have grown larger over time in response to an ever-increasing as our population ages. Ira Riklis and his family have provided significant funding for several years, achieving the rank of “Very Grand Patrons” within the organization. He encourages others to become involved as well. Whether or not you live in New York City, there are seniors in need near where you live, and organizations that seek to help them.

There’s a TV commercial for a popular new kind of energy drink that touts it as a solution to that “2:30 feeling,” that time in mid afternoon when many of us lose steam, can’t focus and can’t be productive at work. That’s all well and good, but without having a good breakfast and lunch, would we even make it to 2:30? Probably not, at least not with the level of functioning we need to work or be at our best. Yet Ira Riklis knows that’s the situation faced by many of New York’s working poor.

These people work hard at low-income jobs that don’t pay well enough to provide for a roof over their heads or even regular, nutritious meals. To help make a difference, at least for a few of these people, Ira Riklis devotes time on many an early Friday morning serving breakfast and lunch with the good folks at the Central Synagogue Caring Committee kitchen. In order to provide the working poor (and those looking for work) with a boost to their day, the group offers the service on Thursday and Friday mornings at a time when no other local kitchens are in operation. The meals help keep these people going far longer than any energy drink could ever do.

In 2009, the vibrant Israeli city of Tel Aviv turned 100 years old. It was occasion of great celebration. Special events—performances, parties, fireworks, celebrations—went on for months. And Ira Riklis knows it was an anniversary worth celebrating. After all, Tel Aviv—the first Hebrew city established in 3,000 years—has grown up bright, strong and full of promise. If you want to experience the height of Israeli culture, education and music, it’s definitely the place to go.

But like any large, modern city, Tel Aviv has its “other side of the tracks”—the back neighborhoods where many live in poverty. It’s a serious situation and one that the American Friends of Tel Aviv Foundation has been working to alleviate since 1977. Seeing the need and feeling the need to help, Ira Riklis became a supporter of the organization more than two decades ago. Since then he and his family have been sponsoring projects targeted to just one neighborhood—Schoonat Ezra—seeking to make a measurable difference there.

Are you happy with the world as it is today? Does everything seem as it should be to you, or do you see injustices, people with needs, things that should be better than they are? While the world is a beautiful place and we all have blessings to celebrate, most of us also see things that should be changed, needs that go unfilled. Ira Riklis sees and feels those things as well. And as a successful businessman, he has, perhaps more than others, the means to make a difference.

But the task to right all the world’s wrongs is immense, at times seemingly too immense for any one of us to even begin to make a difference. At times like those, Ira Riklis recalls a parable told to him long ago by his Rabbi. It involves a man on a vast, lonely, storm-ravaged beach who is picking up stranded starfish one-by-one and tossing them back into the sea to save their lives. The moral of the story is that when faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge, we can either give up or begin to chip away at the problem in whatever small way we can.

With the summer winding down and September just around the corner, college students around the country are gearing up for fall classes. And while they may not realize it, those graduate students who will be attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Graduate School of Education will be following in the footsteps of Ira Riklis and his wife Diana. They have fond and grateful memories of excellent education and experiences attending those colleges.

That’s one reason they’ve been happy to give back to those schools over the years since. Much of their support has gone to the GRE, since that’s where they perceive as most needing their support. Ira Riklis attended Wharton, but knows that many alumnae of that college have achieved great success and are more than happy to offer their support to that college. They’ve watched both schools grow over the years, and they both feel a certain satisfaction knowing that they’ve aided that process so that students entering into programs this year will enjoy the same, or even better, level of education that they did.

Ira Riklis and his family have supported many worthy organizations and causes over the course of their lives. Each year, they give gifts to more than fifty worthwhile groups. Of course, as with any of us, no matter how blessed we may be with wealth, there’s a limit to what they can give. Accordingly, some groups receive large sums, while others get smaller amounts. Some get a more symbolic donation of eighteen dollars. About now, you might be scratching your head and wondering: “why such an unusual amount.”

The answer lies in the ancient Hebrew practice of Gematria, a system of assigning numerical values to words and phrases. While Ira Riklis leaves the details up to scholars, he, like most Jews, is well aware that eighteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew word for life. Giving gifts in that amount is considered a way of celebrating life and extending its blessing to those on the receiving end.