Partnering on Grants

Jolene Benner, our Special Projects Coordinator who is working on grants for drug testing, has found the perfect non-profit partner. She has provided some basic information about our new “partner”.

The following is a portion of a statement from the manager of the program:

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Success Through Awareness & Resistance (STAR) Unit provides drug, gang, and violence prevention education to students throughout Los Angeles County. It is a collaborative effort between the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, educators, students, parents, and the community to offer an educational program in the classroom to prevent or reduce the use of “gateway” drugs (alcohol, tobacco and marijuana) and violence among our students. The deputies assigned to the STAR Unit work with 246 schools in 36 school districts, teaching over 52,000 students on a monthly basis. The STAR Unit receives funding from three major sources: contract cities and schools, grants, and Asset Forfeiture. It is vital to the STAR Unit to provide excellent customer service and client satisfaction to our cities and schools in order to continue our programs, keep deputies in the classrooms, and maintain our involvement in bringing the schools and communities together.”

Everyone knows the economical problems are causing a lack of funding in most school districts in California. Because of that lack of funding, the STAR program has been pulled from the Lancaster/Palmdale area and the head of the program was thrilled to have a chance to partner with us because of that fact.

Also, Jolene first approached the Lancaster School District because they had announced budget cuts. Having been a librarian at one time, she knew the funding for new materials for the school libraries would be pulled. The head of the district in Lancaster acknowledged that fact However, when she presented the idea of partnering with the District Librarian to provide books for the schools with the theme of drug/alcohol prevention, they said no. They knew that layoffs for teachers were on the horizon so they felt it would be inappropriate to attempt funding of any kind for the libraries under those circumstances.

However, the head of the STAR program was very enthusiastic about incorporating books to be given to the schools through their program. So the grant money, if awarded, would have a certain percentage going to the STAR program, a certain percentage going to the purchase of books for the district and a certain percentage going to Accu to hold an Open House event for the community.

Jolene is in the process of working out all the details and starting the actual writing of the proposal template. All the Accu locations are in an area where a STAR (or similar) program works with the schools. Because of this, a type of template will work for each location.

This is a slow process, but when done correctly, can result in a grant award which would be beneficial to schools, children and Accu locations. Jolene will keep everyone posted on the progress.