Ronda Kaysen, The New York Times
Published: 11 Jul 2021 12:29 PM BdST
Updated: 11 Jul 2021 12:29 PM BdST Hosting an Airbnb right now may be harder. The New York Times
Last August, Ben and Elana Vorspan bought a cabin in Big Bear City, California, a two-hour drive from their home near Los Angeles, thinking it would make for a nice family getaway and a place they could also rent out. );
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As it turned out, the cabin was in such high demand, with so many people looking for a socially distant getaway during the pandemic, they could barely keep up.
Reservations flooded in as soon as they listed the three-bedroom property, with weekend guests paying $500 a night double the typical peak-season rate. On holidays, some paid as much as $1,000 a night, “which is insane that anybody would pay that much to go away,” said Ben Vorspan, the creative director for a synagogue. “That was very much COVID pricing.”
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Toy fund helps when it’s needed most
The fund has been there through 11 recessions since it was founded in 1949.
By Staff Report
Hundreds of thousands of children have been served by the charity since.
There are always families that need help, even in the best of economic times. Events such as divorces, illnesses, deaths, and accidents don’t follow economic cycles.
But it’s no coincidence the toy fund was launched in that hard winter of 1949. The need has always grown during hard economic times, when unemployment and poverty rise.
The toy fund has been here through 11 economic recessions – some short and shallow; others deep and long. Severe recessions in 1982 and 2008 pushed the national unemployment rate to 10 percent.