Local restaurants supporting schools
Lawrence restaurants are donating money to help local schools battle budget cuts. The restaurants donating are part of the Lawrence Give Back program. Enlarge video
The Lawrence Originals restaurants
• 23rd Street Brewery
• Bambino’s Italian Cafe
• Biggs BBQ
• Buffalo Bob’s Smokehouse
• Genovese
• Global Cafe
• India Palace
• Johnny’s Tavern, Johnny’s West
• La Parrilla
• Local Burger
• Marisco’s
• Pachamamas Restaurant
• Paisano’s Ristorante
• Set ’em Up Jack’s
• TEN
• Wheat State Pizza
• Zen Zero
• Zig & Mac’s
Donations to help the Lawrence school district battle its budget crisis aren’t pouring in.
Still, there are plenty of avenues for people to help, including by eating next Tuesday and Wednesday at 19 Lawrence restaurants that will donate proceeds to the district as it faces a $5 million budget shortfall because of the state’s budget crisis.
“The school board is facing some really tough decisions right now with the cuts they need to do,” said Constance Wolfe, founder of the Lawrence GiveBack Program. “We’re doing everything we can to support them.”
Susan Esau, executive director of the Lawrence Schools Foundation, said Wednesday only one family had donated so far after the announcement last week the district had set up a budget assistance fund.
She said the lack of donations has not discouraged the district because the foundation encouraged donors to wait and contribute after the school board identifies its budget cuts in March or April.
“We’d be better able to meet our donors’ intent if we all wait,” Esau said. “Then we can all look at specific programs and specific price tags.”
A group of 19 restaurants known as the Lawrence Originals has been donating 5 percent of purchases made through the GiveBack program every Tuesday and Wednesday this month.
So far the program has only raised a little more than $300, but Wolfe said she hoped a recent push could spur more people to go out to eat next Tuesday and Wednesday to donate.
If diners present their GiveBack cards to servers, the restaurant will donate 5 percent of their tab to the school fund.
Wolfe said people who don’t have cards can get one for free at the restaurants. Card owners can also go online at lawrencegiveback .com and select the “general school fund” as their beneficiary.
It’s modeled after a program at the restaurants in the last year that has donated about $60,000 to local charities and agencies.
Comments
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merrill (anonymous) says…
Time to go eat ...... could be a real picnic.
global cafe,La Parilla, the big Zen Zero and local burger will be our choices.
grammaddy (anonymous) says…
What a wonderful idea! Where can I get a giveback card? Can I make a donation to the fund myself? Ooh Merril, thanks for a partial list. I've been wanting to check out Local Burger anyway.
alm77 (anonymous) says…
"Donations to help the Lawrence school district battle its budget crisis aren’t pouring in." Mostly because a) we're *all* broke b) the state should fund the schools like they are supposed to and c) the district needs to learn to operate within the budget that it has while making kids their priority.
Grammaddy, you can get your card at any of the restaurants. It's a fantastic deal for everyone!
ralphralph (anonymous) says…
Nice thought, but when we start having bake sales to pay for our schools it kind of lets the State off the hook for failing to carry out its constitutionally mandated duty to fund education.
I'd like to see a contemporaneous effort to knock heads in Topeka with the same kind of enthusiasm.
justoneperson (anonymous) says…
Is Zig & Macs still owned by locals?
Shardwurm (anonymous) says…
ralphralph I hate to rain on your parade but there isn't any money. Do you understand what a tax shortfall is? You can't have money unless you take more from all of us. 'The State' as you call it is US you moron!
P.S. - I donated when I paid my taxes.
alm77 (anonymous) says…
papa, join the Lawrence Originals if you can. They only donate 10% I think and that's 5% to schools and 5% to charity. I need to go online, register my card, read up on the whole thing and start using it to it's maximum potential.
jumpin_catfish (anonymous) says…
Mo money, mo money mo money but the facts of life tell us its no money no money no money.
kylechandler (anonymous) says…
Great Program....its unfortunate that it must come to this though.
Hopefully Gail Finneys Medical Proposal will be put through and not only will our children and their teachers rest better at night, but maybe a Terminally ill person can enjoy some comfort as well.
oneeye_wilbur (anonymous) says…
It's a good way for the restaurants to generate a bit of business. So how much dining out does it take to raise $4million?
This would be a good math problem for the grade school kids to figure out, but then that would be too much like a real life math problem.
If proceeds were to be raised through dining out, the McDs should get hit up for 5%. Those high school kid could bail out the district in one afternoon at lunch time.
And the seniors at BK on 6th st with the honky tonk band.
The district will have to cut as other districts are doing. Lawrence can no longer have the school district as the second largest employer living from property taxes. The state is sending back more money for each student than any parent ever pays in state income tax. So, get over it folks, the schools need to get back to the basics. The teachers can clean the classroom. The principals can clean the hallways, and the teacher's union needs to get their heads out and have a 10% cut in all pay. If someone quits, then the savings is then 100%.
Everyone wants a job, but the district employees for some reason don't want to give up anything. Nothing!
MyName (anonymous) says…
You are dumb Wilbur. How is any of the stuff you listed going to fix anything? You're talking about laying off custodians and then basically paying teachers and principals to be $20-$30 / hour part time janitors. I can't think of a single private sector business where this would be seen as a good idea. And then let's just add an arbitrary pay cut as well. Do you have any numbers showing that 10% would even be enough to cover the shortfalls, or did you just pull that number out of your butt?
And let's just examine this nugget of wisdom: "The state is sending back more money for each student than any parent ever pays in state income tax."
So what? When you have more uneducated adults running around, society as a whole suffers. Do you think businesses want to go back to the days where most people had a 6th grade education? Can you think of a single business owner that wouldn't rather pay taxes than set aside a chunk of money to teach new hires basic Math, English, and vocational skills? It just doesn't make any sense to anyone with half a brain.
avoice (anonymous) says…
MyName: Unfortunately, businesses currently do have to teach new hires basic math, English and vocational skills. And, even more unfortunate than that is the sad fact that people with a 6th grade education a few decades ago were far better equipped mentally and responsibility-wise to enter the work force than are today's public high school graduates.
kugrad (anonymous) says…
That's the key myname. Ol one-eye is just a troll from Eudora who is a couple tacos short of a combo platter.
Why should the teachers take a 10% pay cut to provide constitutionally mandated services?
Too bad one-eye didn't pay closer attention when he was getting educated.
MyName (anonymous) says…
@avoice:
I call BS on that. Especially since "a few decades ago" would be 1980. Maybe 60 to 70 years ago that would be more accurate, because there were alot more smart people that stopped school at 6th grade, but there isn't a single (sane) person saying we should go back to 1930s level education. Which is basically what Wilbur is advocating, even though he doesn't want to call it like that. The bottom line is that in 1870 there was 1 in 5 people who could not read anything, 100 years later that's less than .5%. There isn't a single employer out there needing to teach basic literacy even though pretty much every job requires some kind of reading ability.
And I'm sure you can bring plenty of anecdotes of underqualified people who are trying to get a job, but the data out there shows that education has been increasing overall, and the reason for that is because the good jobs require it and they don't want to train people higher level skills if they don't have to. That's why they pay taxes too.
Jay_Bird (anonymous) says…
Maybe instead of spending millions of our tax dollars to build unneeded new sporting facilities at district schools, the money should have been spent on core educational needs in the district.
I will not contribute another cent to fund the financial follies of this school district.
OldEnuf2BYurDad (anonymous) says…
I have yet to hear from one "protester" what their solution is for mitigating the impact of a 5 million dollar shortfall.
And, I speak as one who lives two blocks from a school that my daughter would have attended in a couple of years. But, I understand that the situation is dire, so I'm not whining.
puckstah (anonymous) says…
OldEnuf2BYurDad
check out http://www.saveourneighborhoodschools...
first link....$5.5 million and have more ideas for cuts if needed
Jane (anonymous) says…
ditto, Jay_Bird.
oneeye_wilbur (anonymous) says…
A challenge to kugrad and myname. Put the total amount of the USD budget online. Then take 10% of that amount off. Voila, you have saved money.
If a teacher who is making $30,000 a year wants to quit for a $3,000 pay cut, so be it. Someone else will come along who needs a job. In the school district nepotism runs rampant.
A 6th grade education some years ago, was a better education than most are getting now. They cannot even fill out a job application properly after graduating from high school. They are so dumb, that they cannot even look up a phone number for an employer, even if they had a part time job.
Many only put down the supervisor's first name. They dont' even know the last or if they were told, they cannot remember. Oh, of course, how foolish, they have ADD or whatever, and bi polar and anything else that they can be medicated for an have paras and all kinds of help.
Isn't it strange that teachers 40 years ago and longer than that were able to produce students who became doctors, lawyers and even the grandparents and parents of these spoiled, undereducated kids in the schools now. In fact, some of those educated years ago, even learned to type, using both hands. Now they call that keyboarding,kinda like skateboarding.
There is no money. The school board needs to make cuts and if it involves their next door neighbor, so what. If it involves their friends, so what. Lawrence cannot continue to have the school district as the second largest employer sucking over 50% of the property taxes from a community that has no tax base. Even if it did, the district would continue to have inflated ideas of what is believed to be the best district around.
kugrad has the same attitude that so many at KU have, they believe they are so much smarter than anyone else in the community and therefore, only their ideas are credible.
Too bad, KU doesn't take the ax to some employees that have tenure. Talk about giving preferential treatment. Tenure should not be allowed. It only perpetuates those who cannot find a job anyplace else to continue to sit around and wait for their retirement. Ever notice how some profs, when they retire, they just die. They have no purpose anymore. All that education and they just cannot do without an office.
USD 497 has no money now, tomorrow or next year.