Children’s Village asks Washington County Public Schools for funding help
Children’s Village of Washington County expects to have a funding shortfall of about $25,000 this year, and has asked Washington County Public Schools for help, the nonprofit’s board president said.
More than 2,000 Washington County second-graders per year receive life-safety training for free at the 1546 Mount Aetna Road center, with about 1,665 of them coming from the public school system, Children’s Village Board President Nick Hill Sr. said. The other county students are home-schooled or attend private schools.
The life-safety educational center provides a two-day program to teach youngsters about personal safety, including preventing fire, traffic, bicycle, railroad and water accidents, as well as talking to them about “stranger danger,” Children’s Village officials said.
There have been 27 documented cases in which a child who came through the life-safety program helped save a life, Hill said.
Asked if Children’s Village would cut services if it can’t get funds to cover the expected shortfall, Hill said, “We’ll get it somehow. I won’t let that happen. We’ll work our fingers to the bone.”
In a Feb. 4 letter to Washington County Public Schools Superintendent Clayton Wilcox, Children’s Village board members talked about funding cuts from the county, and asked the school system for $25,000 to support student programming.
The Children’s Village board asked for an additional $25,000 to repave roads and the “village streets” where youths drive small battery-operated cars around a mock village as they learn about traffic safety.
The nonprofit’s board put a higher priority on the request for operational support, which is a continuous expense, than on the one-time expense of repaving and remarking the streets.
“I don’t think we can meet the full request, but we’re going to try to do something because our kids benefit from it,” Wilcox said last week.
Wilcox said he would talk to his finance team to see if it could find money in his proposed $259.3 million operating budget to provide either a flat amount or an amount per child to the nonprofit.
Rochelle Morrell, whose last day as Children’s Village’s executive director was Feb. 21, said it costs the nonprofit at least $67 for each child to go through the two-day program.
Morrell said she had been with the nonprofit for 14 years, during which the program has “grown tremendously.”
Now, it’s more about maintaining the program, she said.
“I just feel like I’ve done what I wanted to do there,” Morrell said. “And, I have to say, it’s very frustrating trying to raise funds.”
Dwindling allocations
Children’s Village officials cited funding cuts from Washington County government over the past few years as contributing largely to the funding shortfall.
The nonprofit’s annual budget is about $160,000, officials said.
The nonprofit has received funding from two county government sources — community organization funding and the gaming fund.
In early February, the county revealed its list of proposed general fund allocations for nonprofits, or community organization funding, with Children’s Village recommended to get $10,000 in the county fiscal year that starts July 1.
In such allocations for the county’s current fiscal year, the Village received $12,000, Village officials said. For about three years before that, the Village received $24,500 per year, and before that, it was $25,000 per year, Village Operations Director Brenda Conrad said.
Approximately eight years ago, the Village was receiving $15,000 to $20,000 per year from the gaming fund, Village Board Secretary Allen Swope said.
The nonprofit received $7,500 in the most recent distribution of gaming funds, Conrad said.
The nonprofit also has seen a decrease in donations over the years, and has had to take on the cost of paying part-time instructors because there have been fewer in-kind instructors provided by local public safety agencies, Village officials said.
The Hagerstown Fire Department still provides some in-kind instruction service, and some police officers in the community stop by for a couple of hours at a time, Swope said.
Figures regarding donations were not immediately available, but the annual cost of instructors is about $13,000 to $15,000, Conrad said.
Children’s Village receives revenue from schools outside the county whose students go through the two-day life safety program.
That brings in about $3,500 to $3,600 per year, mostly from Waynesboro, Pa., public schools and some private schools from Franklin County, Pa., Conrad said.
The nonprofit also receives about $2,400 per year from a partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Morrell said.
Public educators from fire departments across the country take classes at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md., and visit Children’s Village to see what the Village’s risk reduction and public safety program for children looks like, Morrell said.
The Village has corporate sponsors, such as Meritus Health and AC&T, which cover the maintenance associated with smaller-scale or mock buildings that are a part of the village, officials said. AC&T sponsors the gas station.
Washington County Hospital used to sponsor the mock hospital, but stopped several years ago, and Meritus Health picked up the sponsorship last year, Village officials said. A banner reading “Meritus Health” is on the front of the mock hospital.
Competition for funds
Terry L. Baker, president of the Board of County Commissioners, said these are tough times and there’s more competition from nonprofits for funding.
“Unfortunately ... the times that we’re living in right now, our gaming funds have been not as strong as they have been in the past,” Baker said. “And we have more and more entities, nonprofits, asking for contributions.”
Baker pointed out that the $7,500 in gaming funds for Children’s Village actually was an increase over the $5,000 it received the previous year.
When the proposed list for community organization funding was released in February, it totaled $1.68 million in proposed general fund allocations for 21 groups. But 40 applications for the funding has been filled out, with 31 groups requesting nearly $2.5 million.
“More and more nonprofits are asking for help, and we’re doing all that we can do,” Baker said.
Commissioner Ruth Anne Callaham said for the community organization funding, each commissioner appointed a person to a committee that reviews the funding applications and is empowered to talk to people and visit applicants. Committee members score each application, then rank the applications based on those scores.
“What we hope that has done is bring to the surface the most current information on an organization, a clear understanding of their mission and impact and outcomes. And it takes away ... much of the subjectivity,” Callaham said.
As with the Gaming Commission, committee members are not allowed to serve on the boards for any nonprofits, she said.
That restriction for the Gaming Commission could change as a result of a bill sponsored by the county delegation during the current Maryland General Assembly session.
If successful, that bill would repeal a provision in the law requiring members of the county’s gaming commission to stop serving on the commission if they are on the board of an entity or work as an officer of an organization that applies for funds from the commission.
As Baker did, Callaham pointed out the increase in competition among nonprofits for funding.
Asked if she was concerned about funding being cut for Children’s Village, Callaham said, “I think ... to say that I have concerns, I do not. Because I believe so strongly in the generosity of this community.”
Callaham said she thinks Children’s Village will regain the lost funding from the community.
Not the ‘new kid’
“The real challenge is, we are no longer the new kid on the block,” Morrell said.
Children’s Village opened in 1990, Swope said.
“All of this was actually built by the community. Volunteers really built this place,” said Swope, who retired in 1996 as commander of the Maryland State Police’s Hagerstown barrack.
Fire and police officials recognized that a lot of accidents involved children, and came up with the idea for Children’s Village, he said.
Back then, Children’s Village had about 30 volunteers, Swope said. Now, it has about 12.
The Village’s board of directors also is getting older, and it’s been harder to recruit young people to serve on the board and help with fundraisers because they have busy lives, Swope said. Recruiting volunteers is a national problem, he said.
Hill said the board is expecting at least one new member — a Volvo employee whose child praised the Village’s program.
Volunteers ran the operation until 1995, when Conrad was hired.
Conrad, who works full-time, currently is the nonprofit’s only paid employee.
The Village is advertising for a part-time fundraising manager with experience in fundraising and grant writing, board members said.
Hill said Village officials want to hold more fundraisers and increase marketing and grant-writing efforts.
Children’s Village holds four annual fundraisers, including its annual open house, called Kids Alive, in the spring.
During its early years, Kids Alive drew thousands of people to the center and Mount Aetna Road would be closed for the event.
The most recent Kids Alive, which is held in May, drew about 500 people, said Hill, who became board president in January.
The safety fair has included a child identification program, an exhibit of a burned house, and demonstrations such as a canine unit and an emergency helicopter landing.
Other fundraisers include a breakfast at the Hagerstown Elks Lodge in April, a golf tournament at Black Rock Golf Course in September and, for the third year this year, a 5-K at Children’s Village in June.
Hill said he would like to increase participation and sponsorship for the golf tournament. He also wants to get the nonprofit to be involved in the Bonanza Extravaganza, an annual event that the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1605 holds at Hagerstown Speedway to raise funds for nonprofit groups.
Who should meet the needs?
In its funding request to the school system, Village board members noted a letter from the Community Foundation of Washington County’s Grants Allocation Committee chairman.
In turning down Children’s Village’s request for funding this year, the Grants Allocation Committee noted that the Village “is a very valid program. However, it seems that, since this program is offered via the WCPS, the need should be met by school funds,” according to a copy of the letter sent to Children’s Village.
The school system owns the 5-acre property on which Children’s Village operates, according to the Hagerstown office of the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation.
However, Hill said, the nonprofit pays its utilities and other expenses. The school system approves the curriculum, but the nonprofit operates the program.
School board member Paul Bailey, who is in his 16th year on the board, said he doesn’t recall Children’s Village ever asking the school system for funds before this.
“It’s certainly reasonable to ask, but I don’t know what we can do,” Bailey said.
“I think there are so many requests like that, that are out there,” Bailey said. He said it would take some time to deliberate what is feasible.
The Children’s Village funding request to the school system came up briefly during a Feb. 18 school board work session about the proposed budget when board Vice President Donna Brightman mentioned a letter from Children’s Village and her interest in finding some financial support for the nonprofit.
“It’s one of those programs that we’ve been associated with and partnering with for years,” Brightman said. “I just think it’s a very valuable asset. Our children are served by it. So if we can help in some way, I just think it’s something we ought to look into.”
School Board President Justin Hartings said his children went to Children’s Village as second-graders, and had a great experience and got a lot of good information.
“I think it’s a very valuable program for our kids. So it’s important to me that it continue,” Hartings said.
“I don’t look at us as being a funder of community organizations. But, where organizations are providing services to our students, I think some sort of fee-for-service or way to compensate for (that) service they provide is appropriate,” Hartings said.
Editor's note:This story was changed on March 3 to correct the title of the operations director and the fact that the position is a full-time position.
