In an effort to help kick off a local campaign to raise money to replace computer equipment taken from the Bowers Elementary School over the holiday weekend, a local businesswoman will make the first monetary donation to the school on Friday morning.
Jill Merriam is using the moment to help encourage others to add to the fund, according to a news release.
Merriam, of Key Hyundai of Manchester, said that she is “disgusted” by the fact that anyone would steal from a school and is donating the money in order to get the “kids back on line, without a hitch.”
A mother of two elementary school-aged students who attend classes in another district, Merriam said that she knows “how hard schools have to work for technology funding, and wants to make sure these kids have the tools they need to keep the learning going strong,” according to the e-mailed release.
Over the Veterans Day holiday weekend, a thief or thieves took 14 laptops and one desktop model, in addition to other audio-visual equipment and a cart used to transport the equipment between classrooms, according to reports in the Hartford Courant and the Manchester Journal Inquirer.
During the school board’s meeting Wednesday night, interim Superintendent of Schools Richard Kisiel said that the district will accept cash donations to offset the replacement cost of the computers, much of which was paid for out of the education budget. The district cannot accept used equipment because of compatibility issues, according to school officials.
