COUNTYWIDE : Japanese Businesses Give Schools $64,000

Japanese businesses with Orange County divisions donated about $64,000 in cash and equipment last week to dozens of schools that children of Japanese workers attend while living in the United States.

This is the third year the association’s Orange County members have donated cash and other items to county schools.

“This program was not brainstormed in response to anti-Japanese sentiments at all,” said Gretchen Booma, a spokeswoman for the Japan Business Assn. of Southern California. “They felt that the teachers and the school districts were making a lot of effort to accommodate their schoolchildren and wanted to show their gratitude for that.”

Last year, the association donated about $60,000 in cash and equipment. Recently, the association donated $105,000 in cash and equipment to schools in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County and will make donations to downtown Los Angeles schools this month, Booma said.

Sixty schools from 14 Orange County districts received the gifts; most have at least one child of a Japanese worker attending. Irvine Unified School District received the largest share this year, with $18,161 in cash, a camera, television, video recorders, fax machines and other equipment going to its schools.

“We have a significant portion of Japanese students,” Deputy Supt. Bruce Givner said. “We’re very pleased and appreciate (the business association’s) support. They’ve always been good to us.”

In addition to the annual donations from the Japan Business Assn., individual Japanese corporations also donate regularly to the school district, Givner said.

The gifts from the 700-member business association is one of the largest single corporate donations county schools receive throughout the year, Orange County Board of Education President Dean McCormick said. There are about 270 children of Japanese executives in the Irvine district and about 340 such Japanese children living in Orange County.

“It’s their way of thanking us for bringing their children into our schools,” McCormick said.