Frugal social worker leaves $11 million to children's charities
![Alan Naiman](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/aFLx7roNaQfYCCEmYDsFr3-415-80.jpg)
A Washington State social worker named Alan Naiman left $11 million to children's charities in his estate, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Naiman inherited several million from his parents, but he saved millions more by living frugally and working side jobs. He was not married and had no children, though he cared for a developmentally disabled brother until the brother's death in 2013.
"Saving money was sort of a game to him," said Naiman's friend Shashi Karan. "He would brag about how he had a whole day out and didn't have to spend a single cent."
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Among the organizations Naiman benefited are Washington's Pediatric Interim Care Center, which cares for infants born dependent on drugs, and the Treehouse foster care organization, which plans to use the funds to expand its college and career counseling.
"The frugality that he lived through, that he committed to in his life, was for this," Jessica Ross of Treehouse told the AP. "It's really a gift to all of us to see that pure demonstration of philanthropy and love."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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