chill out jc moms...

http://www.jcpal.org/

Their Address is 163 Old Bergen Road. 07305

The PAL is located at Old Bergen Road and Pearsall Ave
in South Greenville. They have been there for a long time.
There are a lot of trophies in the windows.

It's the Police Activity League.

The Jersey City PAL (Police Activity League) is a local organization that does a great job with a not-so-great budget. They used to have their headquarters on Bergen Avenue but they had to move - not sure where they are now in the city.

They sponsor a lot of after school/weekend recreational programs as well as tutoring, mentoring, drug/gang avoidance programs, etc for at-risk youths right in Jersey City. The official name of the program was changed to "Police Activity League" to reflect their participation in programs other than athletics.

That said, they use a telemarketing firm to solicit donations for their organization. JCPAL only receives a small portion of the donation you give via the telephone, but, as it was explained to me several years ago, they really need the funding.

The telemarketing firms police organizations sometimes use (not sure if this is your experience) almost make it seem like officers are calling you - or the organization itself is calling you to solicit the donation. That is not true. They are also aggressive. The telemarketing firms generally have a pretty high operating budget and the mentioned charity only gets a small bite of that pie. It's misleading to the consumer and I'm not a big fan.

If you're interested in supporting the JCPAL (again, a very worthwhile charity), I would recommend calling them directly and speaking to their local director. They need funding, supplies as well as mentors and volunteers.

As for the telemarketing firm, you did the right thing by asking them to stop calling you (IMHO).

It's the Police Athletic League, or PAL. I worked with PAL/NYC in the past to help raise funds for after-school programs in NYC. I assume this is the JC branch. Don't know much about this local branch though.

Here's a link to their financials:
http://www.guidestar.org/organization ... ty-league-new-jersey.aspx

You can make sure any nonprofits that you donate to are legit via guidestar.org

Anyone know much about this group? Sponsors underprivileged youths? I looked at their website and they sound great. I ask, however, because not everything that goes on in New Jersey is always legitimate and before considering my donation to the association I'd like to hear from others....they are quite aggressive as far as soliciting donations. I finally had to insist they stop calling my work number and I don't know why that raised a red flag for me...