Time to Help Our Own

Feel the need for a duck-hunting trip to Arkansas, a digital camera, plastic surgery, a Bermuda weekend, or the opportunity to pitch a business to a venture capitalist? Check out the new gift fund site www.our-own.org, set up by Peggy Lee, president of Stamford, Conn.-based Lee Travel Group and chairwoman of online housing service b-there. You can buy raffle tickets on an eclectic and growing group of donated items — the best part is that the proceeds provide direct financial support to the families of the 61 identified meeting, travel, and hospitality industry victims of the September 11 attacks.

Soft-launched in January, the foundation divvies up the funds to hospitality and travel industry victims' families on a pro rata basis. “I didn't want to even get into who should get what,” Lee says. The official kickoff party was scheduled to be held at the Stamford Marriott on March 20; many of the victims' families planned to attend.