IRVINE : Telethon for Schools Generates $13,000
The Irvine Unified School District’s fund-raising foundation raised slightly more than $3,000 in pledges and received a $10,000 donation Tuesday night during a three-hour cable television telethon.
The telethon was the first time an Orange County education foundation has aired a program to raise money for public schools.
“It’s about $1,000 an hour, which is not bad for a night’s work,” said Elizabeth Thomas, executive director of the Irvine Education Foundation. The nonprofit foundation was set up 10 years ago to raise money for equipment and instruction not covered by dwindling state education funding.
Like traditional telethons, more than 100 volunteers from the foundation and community took part in informative discussions and musical entertainment segments, with regular reminders for viewers to call in a pledge. An Irvine bank donated the use of its telephones to take the calls.
Besides telephoned pledges, the owner of an Irvine business that manufactures optical disk data storage systems donated about $10,000 worth of stock in his company during the show, bringing fund-raising proceeds for the evening up to about $13,000, Thomas said. The stock came from Duncan MacDonald, owner of Duncan MacDonald Inc.
During the telethon, school and community officials participated in panel discussions highlighting the state of education funding and what goes on in the classroom.
“The participants loved it. That was the greatest thing,” Thomas said. “It definitely looks like we’re going to do it again next year.”
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