Getting a national award for Harold Matzner’s story
Almost weekly, Desert Sun stories mention Harold Matzner’s support for local charities. His responsibilities include chairing Palm Springs International Film Festival and McCallum Theatre https://www.palmspringslife.com/harold-matzner-an-oral-history/, serving on the Palm Springs Art Museum board and being an active board member of Eisenhower Medical Center. Despite supporting dozens of non-profit organizations, he rarely discusses how he has been able to do so.
When it was announced that Mattzner would receive the Horatio Alger Award from the Washington D.C.-based Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans as one of 11 national recipients, he agreed to sit down and discuss his own Horatio Alger story. The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans was formed in 1947 to dispel citizens’ fears about the American dream disappearing. During March 30-April 1, Matzner will be inducted into the association.
Additionally, the Denver Broncos general manager John Elway, Dr Valerie Montgomery Rice, president and dean of Morehouse School of Medicine, and Roger S. Penske, chairman of Penske Corporation, which rents trucks, were among the corporate and philanthropic leaders. His membership in the Alger Association includes fellow Coachella Valley residents R.D. Hubbard, Greg Renker and Dennis Washington, who donated $10 million to the association in 2008.
He joins just over 200 living members. One of the best-known young adult novels of the 19th century was Horatio Alger, who recounted “rags to riches” stories. In addition to delivering newspapers and working as a salesman in his hometown of New Jersey, Matzner also had humble beginnings, according to the organisation. The association said in a statement that his selection was not only a reflection of his outstanding professional achievements but also of the perseverance he demonstrated through the course of his life.
Since 1997, Mr Matzner has given more than $60 million to Palm Springs non-profits as chairman of CBA Industries. As he discussed his life from his expansive, luxury home embedded in the San Jacinto Mountains over Palm Springs, Matzner was reluctant to share the obstacles he had overcome to get to where he was. In his opinion, freedom is the most important thing to him.
It is important to him that the New York-based Innocence Project exonerates wrongly convicted people by DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system so that future injustices cannot occur. As a grandson of a cantor, Matzner will be 80 next July 4. Through the Work Progress Administration, his father received federal funding for a federally-funded job and eventually became part of an inner-city printing company as a minority partner. As a high school student, Harold bought a trade publication.
