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January 21, 2000/7 Shevat 5760, Vol. 52, No.20
Scholarship donations near $500,000
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
Jewish students across the Valley look to be among the winners from a state income-tax credit for contributions to school-tuition scholarship organizations.
Taxpayers taking advantage of the $500 credit contributed nearly $500,000 to Jewish organizations that provide scholarships to students to attend Jewish day schools. Most of the contributions were made during the final quarter of 1999.
"Staggering" is how Randy Warner, chairman of the Jewish Community Day School Scholarship Fund's board of directors, described the response.
The fund, a partnership involving the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix and six Valley Jewish day schools - the Beth El Center for Early Childhood Education, the proposed Jewish Community High School, the King David School, the Solel Pardes School, the Tri-City Jewish Community Center Day School, and the Valley of the Sun JCC Preschool - raked in nearly $360,000 from some 718 contributors, according to federation figures.
Chabad Tuition Organization Inc., which was created to provide scholarships to students attending Phoenix Preparatory High School, pulled in more than $50,000 from 150 contributors, Rabbi Zalman Levertov of the Chabad-Lubavitch Center said, adding that, as a result of the contributions, the organization will be able to provide 10 scholarships - split evenly between boys and girls - to students to attend Phoenix Prep during the 2000-2001 school year.
The Cheder Scholarship Organization, which provides scholarships to students attending Phoenix Hebrew Academy and Tucson Hebrew Academy, pulled in about $71,000, said Rabbi David Rebibo, the academy's dean. He said 150 to 200 people contributed.
Rebibo said that while "we have every reason to be pleased" with the results, he believes the organization could do better.
"Is this the maximum, the optimum? I would doubt it," he said. "It still has to be marketed properly."
Fred Zeidman, federation assistant executive director, said a goal of $200,000 had been established for donations to the federation's scholarship fund.
"We're just thrilled and delighted" to have exceeded that goal by $160,000, Zeidman said.
Warner said the response indicates that "a whole lot of people in the community care a lot about Jewish day-school education."
Lynne Wellish, special projects director for the Chabad-Lubavitch Center in Phoenix, said the Chabad Tuition Organization has been "very successful" in pulling in scholarship contributions.
"I still believe that the law is not understood properly by the public," Wellish said. "People don't see the value-added benefit that they get by controlling where their tax dollars go. I think there's still some confusion that it's a tax donation - a charitable contribution - instead of a tax credit."
Those comments echoed those of Rebibo, who said "a lot of people don't know much about (the credit)."
Warner, however, disagreed.
"That may have been the case several months ago, but there was a lot of publicity, in the Jewish community and the general community, about this tax credit and I think there's now pretty wide understanding of how it works," Warner said.
The organization's board now will dole out the money to qualified students and then "gear up for next year's campaign."
The scholarships will be based on need, and no merit scholarships are planned "in the foreseeable future," Warner said, adding that the people making the scholarship decisions "won't know what school that person goes to; at least that's the goal of the process."
Rebibo said that, though the Cheder group provides scholarships to students attending the Phoenix and Tucson academies, "by and large whatever was raised here ... will stay here and whatever was raised in Tucson will stay in Tucson."
Zeidman said that most of the contributions to the federation's scholarship fund were made between mid-November and the end of December, and the next campaign's marketing will reflect that fact.
"I'm not saying we'd rule out any kind of marketing strategy for the rest of the year; but I think, clearly, the expectation ... is that the lion's share of those dollars will come in toward the end of the year," Zeidman said.
Zeidman added that, considering the success the scholarship organization has initially enjoyed, federation officials would like to see a statewide coalition of Jewish day schools "and we'd welcome talking with any other qualifying Jewish day schools about their participation."
Zeidman and Warner said ambitions are growing for the follow-up campaign, with a goal of $1 million being discussed.
"I think $1 million next year is realistic," Warner said. "That's basically 2,000 people at $500 apiece."
However, Warner said, the actual amount raised isn't the organization's true goal.
"Our goal is to really be at the point where any Jewish kid in town who wants to go to a Jewish day school can," he said. "There should be no student who stays away because (the parents) can't afford it."
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