Charity's Angels

When Felix and Elizabeth Rohatyn publicly questioned whether the money lavished on New York charity bashes might be better spent on the causes they were meant to serve, the social fish turned on them like a school of Park Avenue piranhas. But a sensitive issue had been raised: the depersonalization of philanthropy. It's easy to write out a fat check to a worthy cause when you can look forward to a good time with your glamorous pals and another tax deduction, but there are those who have a quieter, more hands-on approach to charity, and they're not all wearing sackcloth and ashes. Some have gotten their share of media attention, but from the Hudson to Hollywood there are a select few doing good deeds in deliberate obscurity. Among them:

Pettr Jsnnlngi monitors a men's shelter in New York City. Barbara Sinatra supports a center for abused children and incest victims in Southern California. Madonna entertains children at a New York cancer hospital.

Piano Koaton ballroom-dances with the residents of a home for the elderly in New York.

Gany Trudoau pitches in at a Grand Central food line. Evowgoline Bruco assists runaway teens for a Washington, D.C., program in her daughter's memory.

Gaol Groono coordinates the preparation of holiday meals by New York chefs for Citymeals-on-Wheels. Wolfgang Puck organizes his fellow chefs and vintners for a benefit for LA's Meals on Wheels.

Leonard Stem guaranteed a loan to turn a former Holiday Inn in Queens into housing for the homeless.

Loretta Young visits the ladies at the Downtown Women's Center on LA's Skid Row.

S.J.