People will fall for anything, especially if it involves kids, schools, and fundraisers. Picture, if you will, a typical school fundraiser, one of the annual holiday events that includes cards, gift wrap, and over-priced, useless Christmas tokens that can be given as gifts to classroom teachers and grandparents. Then, picture little kids selling fund-raising junk in a tough economy, in a poverty-stricken community, in a neighborhood populated by many, many families on public assistance.
Does this scenario add up to $20,000 in cash/checks available to be stolen from behind two locked doors contained within the locked school office -- and no clues as to whom may have committed the crime? None of it adds up: not the alleged $20,000 in cash/checks, nor the lack of leads. How many fundraisers actually amass $20,000 in cash/checks at all, much less in a mere 2 weeks? How many people have all 3 keys necessary to get into the main office, then through the 2 locked doors behind which the cash/checks are secured? How many people would take the checks when they cannot be cashed?
To be perfectly cynical, this whole blown-up local story is hooey!! There may have been a fundraiser, but the public is supposed to believe that $20,000 was collected from sales in a poverty-stricken community during a recession from families that rely on public assistance for their basic survival. We're supposed to believe that somehow an unnamed fund-raising genius was able to engineer that award-winning achievement, which would, in theory, require 500 students each to sell $40 in merchandise and collect the cash/checks at the time the order is placed. And, we are supposed to believe that there is no explanation for the perp to have access to the 3 different keys during a time that no one was on campus to witness the theft.
Right: no suspects; no clues; no witnesses. Just $20,000 missing in cash and checks. Uh, that would be a hell no.
The media is on-board to make this the story of the pre-holiday season, with all the holes filled in with crying children and outraged parents. So far, the stories about the theft have resulted in donations from the community, including, allegedly, $11 from a student who is confined to a wheelchair, but who feels that the theft from the students is far worse than his disability/confinement to the chair.
Nice touch to a story that simply does not hold up under scrutiny.
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1 comment:
Sounds like a good way to compensate for all of the crap they didn't sell. "If we tell them it was stolen, people will donate more than what we would have sold in the first place."
I'm so tired of seeing the fundraising things from people's kids in our lunchroom at work. I wonder how much of this stuff ends up in the landfill? Do you think grandma actually wants another damn snowman? Probably not, but she's too nice to tell you otherwise.
If this is indeed a true story, then I guess the thief was an insider, and took the checks because they didn't want to waste time sorting them out between cash? It still sounds fishy.
*wings -- hey, I got an actual word!
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