MacPherson Puts Car-School Program Into Park for Now

After contributing almost $325,000 to Orange County schools in the past year, auto dealer Joe MacPherson is putting his “Help Our Schools” program on vacation.

MacPherson, who runs one of the county’s largest dealership groups, started the program last year in the wake of the county government bankruptcy and growing concern over the state of the school system.

For each car sold at one of his dealerships, MacPherson donates $50 to the public or private school of the car buyer’s choice. He ran the program from Memorial Day to Labor Day last summer and raised $165,000. He started it up again in March this year and, through the Memorial Day weekend, had raised an additional $157,000.

The program, praised as a significant corporate contribution to education, goes on hiatus June 1 until MacPherson--whose grandkids all attend schools in the county--sees how things are affected by the governor’s proposal to give each public school an unfettered annual grant of $50,000.

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John O’Dell covers major Orange County corporations, manufacturing and economic issues for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at john.odell@latimes.com