Lunch With Representative Don Moffitt on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Gary C. Smith, NAEIR’s President and I sat down with Representative Don Moffitt yesterday over lunch at Chez Willy’s on Historic Seminary Street here in Galesburg, IL.  Of course, yesterday marked an important national holiday - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. 

While municipal, state and federal government agencies and many of our country’s businesses were closed, the Representative had spent the earlier part of an unusually warm and welcome early January day at various important events.  These were held in order to memorialize the formidable contributions of this great man to the civil rights movement in the United States and to celebrate the resulting civil liberties that millions of Americans now hold dear.

As a fulltime legislator in the role of State Representative for the 74^th District in the Illinois General Assembly that’s served in this capacity since 1993, Don’s had years of experience in this capacity.  He also has a number of important committee assignments.  These include the Committee of the Whole, Agriculture & Conservation, Appropriations – Public Safety, Elementary & Secondary Education, Local Government and Veterans Affairs. 

State Representative Don Moffitt,
74th District, IL General Assembly 

Taken as a whole, NAEIR’s approximately 13,000 members include a wide range of nonprofit organizations and schools throughout the country. Within the State of Illinois, NAEIR has more members than in any other single State of the Union; exceeding 1,400 across both of our current membership programs. 

While Representative Moffitt of course, has a keen interest in the welfare and prosperity of our nation as a whole and the State of Illinois specifically, his primary responsibility as an elected official is to his constituents in Illinois’ 74^th District which includes Knox, Stark and parts of Bureau and Henry counties.

Over lunch, we talked about some of the challenges that NAEIR as an organization is facing as a result of the difficult economic climate that's effected virtually everyone in the country, including our nonprofit and school members.  We also brought the Representative up to speed on our efforts regarding HR 2592: the Charitable Contribution Parity & Enhancement Act. Gary talked about the benefits that many more charitable organizations would realize in the form of free products and that greater numbers of small businesses could anticipate in the form of an enhanced federal tax deduction.

We also discussed the idea of working with more school districts in the state and that discussions with public sector leaders in education on the Illinois State level might ultimately result in a productive partnership to that end.  Considering the budget cuts that the State has been experiencing, NAEIR could be a Godsend to most of the State’s school districts in particular.  We currently work with only a fraction of the total 1,068 school districts in Illinois.

We've got a few things to follow up on and agreed, before going our separate ways, that it’s probably a good idea to get together from time to time in order to continue to explore mutual areas of interest.

If you're a business and would like to donate to NAEIR, or if you're a nonprofit, school or church and would like to learn more about the benefits of joining, please give us a call at (800)-562-0955.