Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Anyone Have $60,000?


That's how much it's going to cost to keep a Pace Program for Girls, SONG, alive and kicking. This is a program that focuses on early intervention, year-round schooling, and behavior plans to help at-risk girls.

And due to a lack of funding, this program may be shut down next month.

We either pay now or later. It's in our community's best interest to help these girls get through school. Florida has dismal graduation rates and we must provide alternative schooling to those who would otherwise get lost in our crowded mainstream classrooms.

It's cheaper to pay for these programs than to try and bankroll a generation of young girls who can't finish school, end up on government assistance, get into trouble with the law or drugs, and often end up bringing more babies into the world.

There. Now $60,000 doesn't sound like so much, does it?

4 Comments:

At 7/16/2008, Blogger superdave524 said...

Bake sale? I'll buy three brownies.

 
At 7/16/2008, Blogger Jasper said...

Amendment 1 fallout. While I agree with you that education is important, our elected officials have decided that funding a bio-lab at $6 million is more important than education.

I'm sure they were all quite pleased with themselves, given they barely understood the premise of the proposal.

 
At 7/17/2008, Blogger Mr. Matt said...

Hey, wait, I remembe back in the 80's I voted for (actually I voted against) a lottery that was going to solve all of our education problems. Why they weren't going to cut from the regular budget, just put the education money in on top of that. What? you mean that didn't happen?

Florida continue to rank at the bottom of $ spent on education, why anyone would move here is beyond me.

 
At 7/18/2008, Blogger Not a Granny said...

County funding is being slashed all over. Here in Pasco the County staff have kept the $388,000 in the budget for non-profits but we still have to go through the budget presentations. Our County Commissioners are saying it will be gone completely. The money we receive from our county government leverages $194,000 in other funding to our dv program. Plus it funds a position in our shelter. Without that money the other funding is in jeopardy and we are looking at layoffs.

How do you run a dv shelter without trained staff?

 

Post a Comment

<< Home