Nonprofits Win Disney Cash Prizes

Royal Radtke tightened his grip on a framed $50,000 check Thursday and shook his head.

“This is going to make such a difference in so many children’s lives,” he said. “You don’t even know.”

More children in Orange County who are in danger of being abused or turned away from their homes will be able to find help, he said, because of the money.

Radtke, the Orange County finance director of the Children’s Bureau of Southern California, had just accepted the top prize in Disneyland’s 39th Annual Community Service Awards ceremony.

With fanfare rivaling the Academy Awards show, Disney presented grants ranging from $3,000 to $50,000 to 63 nonprofit agencies in Orange County that help the disabled, the homeless and troubled teenagers.

Since it began in 1957, the awards show has been a funding mecca for Orange County philanthropies, which submit grant applications to Disney every year in hopes of assistance. And, as need grows in this area, so does the prize money.

Just a handful of charities in Anaheim competed for a total of $9,000 in the first ceremony. Since then, the event has grown to include the entire county, accepting 359 applications this year from organization vying for a piece of $350,000.

Awards are kept secret until they are announced at the ceremony. Those who do not win often use the event to network.

“You try to get funding anyway you can,” said Zina Bethune, who teaches disabled children to dance ballet. “You beg, you borrow, you steal. Hopefully, you get lucky at events like this.”

Bethune’s organization, Theatredanse, did not win a grant this year. “We’ll be here next year,” she said. “We always come back.”

A moving ballet performed during the ceremony by Bethune and 15-year-old Lindsey Berkovitz, who is in a wheelchair, inspired loud applause from the audience.

After the performance, a beaming Berkovitz, who has cerebral palsy, said: “I think we got our point across. Everybody can be graceful.

“Programs like this open a lot of doors for us,” she said. “When you are disabled, you think that a lot of doors in life are closed.”