Planning Your Gift to Packard
Deferred Gift Annuities Give Younger Couples Future Retirement Benefits

FALL 2006 -- When Melissa Berkowitz and Roy Martin of San Jose discovered that Melissa's 16-year-old daughter Emily had Hodgkin's lymphoma, finding the best possible treatment became the focus of their life. They searched the entire country for the best hospital and ended up not more than half an hour from home, in the office of oncologist Michael Link, MD, at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

After pressing through months of chemotherapy and radiation, Emily came through in good health. Along with state-of-the-art medical treatment, she found services such as pain management and psychotherapy crucial to her recovery. Now, eight years later, Emily is pursing a PhD in clinical psychology and plans to work at a children's hospital with children and adolescents suffering from serious medical conditions.

In recognition of the care Emily received at Packard Children's, the family -- Melissa, Roy, and daughters Emily and Amanda -- supports cancer research at Packard each year at the Children's Circle of Care level ($10,000 or more). Last year Melissa and Roy discovered a new way to make their annual gift: a deferred gift annuity.

"This type of gift made sense for us.We have a family commitment to contribute to Packard Children's every year, and we decided to take the opportunity to set up a fixed income stream for our retirement years.We were also pleased to learn that our gift could be designated to pediatric oncology research," says Melissa.

The deferred gift annuity is an excellent way for younger donors to make a gift that will generate a fixed income stream when they reach retirement age. In many cases, donors hold appreciated securities that they can use for the donation, and consequently they can avoid an upfront capital gains tax liability. The longer donors defer the annuity payments, the higher the rate of return will be.