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Donations for school supplies welcome |
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Sunday, 07 September 2008 |
By JOSEPH B. NADEAU
WOONSOCKET — State Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt (D-Woonsocket) has a new way for local residents to help the school department.
Anyone wishing to make donations of supplies or funding to a specific program in local schools can now do so without concern that the assistance might be redirected elsewhere.
A bill Baldelli-Hunt introduced in the General Assembly and approved by both the House and the Senate gives donors in Woonsocket and Coventry the option of making a donation through a segregated account overseen by the community’s Finance Department.
The bill became law without action by the Governor.
Baldelli-Hunt said she sponsored the legislation to simplify the process of a person, group or business offering support to a school program of their choosing.
While organizations and companies have offered such support in the past, according to Baldelli-Hunt, the recent difficulties school departments have had in funding their budgets may be raising worries among some donors that their assistance will not go to the program they intended to support.
“It just opens the door for additional support, additional dollars to come into our schools,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
In the case of someone wishing to make a cash donation to a school program like athletics, music, or art, the donor would be able to put the funding into the separate city account and have it earmarked for just that use, she said.
The city’s Finance Department would supervise the account and ensure it was not appropriated to purposes other than intended, she said.
“You don’t have to worry about the school department determining what those funds should be used for,” she said.
The bill will also allow someone who might be upgrading their company’s computer equipment to donate their old equipment to a specific school or school program and know that the donated items would handled in that manner, she said.
“A company owner may say that they have 10 computers for an elementary school and want them to the go to the fourth grade,” she said. “This act will allow them to earmark donation and say “I want these computers to go to the 4th grade,” she said.
In some cases, a parent might want to donate materials or supplies to their own child’s school and would be able to do so under the act’s provisions, she noted.
While option was put into place at the end of the last session, Baldelli-Hunt said the next step will be to get the word out to those who might be interested in making donations to the school department.
Woonsocket School Department Finance Director Robert Strom just learned of Baldelli-Hunt’s bill this week and plans to bring it up at a School Department directors meeting on Monday.
School principals may not be aware they can received targeted donations and may be able to help specific programs in their schools through that process, he sai
“I don’t have any problem with that,” he said. “It may be that people have a tendency to contribute money if they know it will be directed to a specific program,” he said.
There may be people in the community who would be willing to support a program like the high school’s football team if they knew the money would go just to that purpose, he said.
And while a school might have other needs for such support, the fact someone is providing a donation could free up funding or resources to address those needs as well, he explained.
“I think it benefits the school department whether they direct the support to music, art, computers or extra-curricular activities. Whatever it’s targeted to, it’s for the benefit of the kids,” he said. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 08 September 2008 )
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