Parents plan to troll for money for local schools

BY JAY BODAS
Staff Writer

EDISON - A new way to raise funds for the school district?

That's the hope of a group of local parents who have founded Edison Community Foundation for School Construction (ECFSC).

The purpose of the organization, which will receive its formal 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in the next few months, is to raise money for the township's facilities, according to group cofounder Michele Cervelli.

"It originated from us being concerned about the lack of core facilities in the schools, meaning gyms, lunchrooms and auditoriums where the kids get their exercise and have assemblies," said Cervelli. "Everything has been changing with the increasing enrollment, and since our schools were built so many years ago, we need to find a way to fund improvements to the core facilities students use every day."

Cervelli has three children. Two are students in James Madison Elementary School.

"Right now, James Madison still has a gym that is able to hold all of the students, but I was surprised to learn that at Menlo Park School they don't have assemblies because they don't have space to hold all the kindergarten classes," she said.

The organization is based on similar organizations that already exist in other areas, such as kiddo.org and arlingtonschoolsfoundation.org, Cervelli said.

"There are schools in several different states, such as Washington, Texas and Massachusetts, that have done something similar," she said. "They have been set up for different reasons. Some have been set up for strictly art, music, or science, for example."

The potential is enormous. Since 1982, Kiddo.org, an organization serving Mill Valley public schools in California, has raised over $12 million for that area's schools.

Such organizations raise funds through donations, fundraising events, grant-writing, and via partnerships with local businesses.

The organization's other cofounders include parents Melissa Perlstein, Alison McCarthy, Kimberly Smith and Patricia Voorhees.

"It would be a separate, autonomous organization that would have its own ability to assist the school district with finding," said Perlstein.

The organization would also create "an awareness" in the community for the need of renovating school buildings and facilities, she said.

"I don't know if the case has been made well enough from a public relations standpoint that the schools really need this, but they do," Perlstein said. "Menlo was built in the 1970s, and I don't think it has been touched ever since. I haven't been to all the elementary schools, but at that level we have already seen the population boom, and we need to recognize the need for some creative ways to raise more funds. My hopes were diminished when the school budget was recently not passed."

The organization is in the midst of forming a board of directors.

"We are in the organizing stages right now, working on a mission statement and getting the word out there, and going to businesses in the community to solicit their help," Perlstein said.