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May 5, 2006
Lessons in fund-raising
Some schools barely scrape by
NY Daily News
By Tanyanika Samuels and Elizabeth Hays
The Daily News looked into the Ratner sponsorship of the PS 321 PTA fundraiser and found a disheartening pattern in local schools.
It turns out that Forest City Ratner gave $7,500, thanks to FCR Exec VP Bruce Bender and his wife Amy, who is the PTA Co-President.
When Public School 321 parents party at the school's swanky annual dance and auction at the Brooklyn Museum of Art next week, they'll have developer Bruce Ratner and two local real estate companies to thank.
While other Brooklyn public schools struggle to raise money through bake sales and pleading for supplies on eBay, the Park Slope school has become a well-oiled fund-raising machine.
...
"We don't get the financial support [from the state] to pay for enrichment programs that are important to our parents and children," said Amy Bender, association co-president. "We are the ones who have to raise this money."
NoLandGrab Take-Home Message: Forest City Ratner brings its hearts-and-minds campaign right into the center of one of Brooklyn's most affluent neighborhoods while other schools in the Heart of Brooklyn languish.
To Amy Bender's point, perhaps if New York State wasn't in the business of handing so much money to Bruce Ratner, there would be more financial support for school programs.
Posted by lumi at May 5, 2006 7:37 AM