Posted on 07/03/2003 5:58:49 PM PDT by ChocChipCookie
This is the text of an email sent out today from Pampered Chef's founder, Doris Christopher.
Dear Kitchen Consultants:
I have shared with you my pride in being a part of the Berkshire Hathaway family of businesses. I knew that this was the kind of family where The Pampered Chef would thrive and grow for years to come. I have also shared with you my feelings of respect for Warren Buffett.
Today, I am even more proud to call Warren my mentor, leader and friend.
This week I went to Warren with a heavy heart. I told him that many of our Kitchen Consultants were concerned and troubled with Berkshire Hathaway's donation policies - specifically the contributions to pro-choice organizations and to the Buffett Foundation. I knew that I could speak with Warren frankly and that he would want to hear of the issues impacting your business.
It troubled him deeply that charitable donations from Berkshire Hathaway were causing you difficulty. He listened to me carefully and with great compassion. He understands that as his family of Berkshire companies expands, it becomes more diverse, and there are opinions and concerns that need to be taken into consideration. Warren Buffett made a landmark decision regarding the long-standing corporate giving policies of Berkshire Hathaway. His decision was this:
Effective immediately, Berkshire Hathaway will cease all corporate contributions of any kind to any non-profit organization. This means there will be no donations from Berkshire Hathaway to the Buffett Foundation. Let me be clear, there will be no possibility of any Pampered Chef profits being donated to any cause other than those we initiate, including our three current charitable giving programs: Round-Up from the Heart, Help Whip Cancer and the Family Resiliency Program.
Warren Buffett made his landmark decision after hearing what was in my heart and in yours. I believe that Kitchen Consultants, hosts and customers are a diverse group of individuals with different opinions and beliefs. Our business is built on trust and on personal relationships. Warren understands our business and wants you to be successful in every way, able to do business with people of all backgrounds and beliefs.
I admire Warren Buffett for his heart and his insight. He is a wise leader!
Thank you for all you do to make this company strong.
Doris K. Christopher Founder and Chairman
In this world it takes two kinds of people to get results. One is relatively ordinary people but with great courage, like Doris Christopher. (What an appropriate last name for this lady!) The other is people in positions of power and authority who will listen to such people. That, it turns out, means Warren Buffet.
Before I read this thread, I instructed my representative to make another investment in Berkshire Hathaway. I did that for financial reasons. Now, I am even more satisfied with that decision for personal reasons.
Congressman Billybob
I am also impressed with Warren Buffet. He had compassion to do what he did.
Non of this would have been possible if the Pampered Chef ladies had stayed quiet. They didn't need to be loud and ugly, but just lived up to their beliefs.
This is good news.
I wonder if Warren will now merely fund abortion with his private funds.
Not really. It's just that a smooth business operation--with profits flowing in unimpeded--means more to Buffett than a few more corpses for the piles of dead babies he uses his riches to create.
That’s what makes stay-at-home moms like Tara Siler so unique: After four years of winning recognition as a star sales consultant for The Pampered Chef — one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing kitchenware companies — this spring she gave up her salary, slashing her family’s income in half.
Her pro-life convictions led her to resign after she learned her company was bought last fall by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a conglomerate of corporate heavyweights including Dairy Queen, See’s Candy and Fruit of the Loom. Turns out the new owner, Warren Buffett, is — in addition to being the world’s second-wealthiest man — one of the abortion industry’s top financiers.
For years, his company has funneled profits — about $9 million a year to be exact — into The Buffett Foundation, which in turn donated at least $11 million to pro-choice and reproductive-rights groups in 2002. Headed by Buffett and his wife, Susan, the foundation bankrolls Planned Parenthood clinics worldwide. Interestingly, the $9 million received by the foundation in 2001 constituted more than half of Berkshire’s contributions under its charitable giving program that year (over $16 million).
According to Business Week, The Buffett Foundation also made a five-year, $20 million commitment to International Projects Assistance Services — the principal manufacturer of suction pumps used in abortions. “It’s the money to actually do the abortions . . . the nuts and bolts, the hard stuff that he funds,” said Steve Mosher, who, as director of the Virginia-based Population Research Institute, spoke on behalf of pro-life shareholders at Berkshire’s annual meeting last year.
So, despite her $5,000-a-month sales record, Siler didn’t hesitate to quit when a fellow Chef told her about that agenda. “It wasn’t a hard decision because I knew what I had to do,” the 30-year-old West Virginia mom told Citizen. “But it was a very, very difficult sacrifice. It was four years of my heart and my life.
“When I mailed my resignation letter, I didn’t want to proofread it because I was afraid if I looked at it, I would change my mind,” she said. “So I didn’t; I just threw it in the mailbox.” <>That’s what makes stay-at-home moms like Tara Siler so unique: After four years of winning recognition as a star sales consultant for The Pampered Chef — one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing kitchenware companies — this spring she gave up her salary, slashing her family’s income in half. Her pro-life convictions led her to resign after she learned her company was bought last fall by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a conglomerate of corporate heavyweights including Dairy Queen, See’s Candy and Fruit of the Loom. Turns out the new owner, Warren Buffett, is — in addition to being the world’s second-wealthiest man — one of the abortion industry’s top financiers. For years, his company has funneled profits — about $9 million a year to be exact — into The Buffett Foundation, which in turn donated at least $11 million to pro-choice and reproductive-rights groups in 2002. Headed by Buffett and his wife, Susan, the foundation bankrolls Planned Parenthood clinics worldwide. Interestingly, the $9 million received by the foundation in 2001 constituted more than half of Berkshire’s contributions under its charitable giving program that year (over $16 million). According to Business Week, The Buffett Foundation also made a five-year, $20 million commitment to International Projects Assistance Services — the principal manufacturer of suction pumps used in abortions. “It’s the money to actually do the abortions . . . the nuts and bolts, the hard stuff that he funds,” said Steve Mosher, who, as director of the Virginia-based Population Research Institute, spoke on behalf of pro-life shareholders at Berkshire’s annual meeting last year. So, despite her $5,000-a-month sales record, Siler didn’t hesitate to quit when a fellow Chef told her about that agenda. “It wasn’t a hard decision because I knew what I had to do,” the 30-year-old West Virginia mom told Citizen. “But it was a very, very difficult sacrifice. It was four years of my heart and my life. “When I mailed my resignation letter, I didn’t want to proofread it because I was afraid if I looked at it, I would change my mind,” she said. “So I didn’t; I just threw it in the mailbox.”
She’s not alone. In the last few months, pro-life consultants in several states have resigned or verbally protested their profits going to one of the world’s biggest abortion promoters. It’s an insurrection of Chefs, so to speak.
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