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Nonprofit Solicits Revenue

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By CARL ORTH

Suncoast News

Published: February 18, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Times are tough all over, and nonprofit community agencies are by no means exempt from the recession and funding cuts.

So the Red Apple Adult Training Center officials decided to experiment, borrowing a concept from public buses.

One of the Red Apple vans now carries small, billboard ads plastered on the sides of the vehicle.

The hope is that selling ads can raise extra money to offset state budget cuts for the Red Apple Adult Training Center, an organization for mentally challenged adults who learn independent living skills there. Red Apple has grown to 106 students and 42 staff members at four locations.

Testing the waters with trial ads are a local dentist, Alan Hecht, and Hecht Travel Service.

The peel-on, peel-off adhesive ads run under a banner that says, "Help Support Our Supporters."
Red Apple got hit with 17.2 percent total cuts in state funding in the past fiscal year, Executive Director Steve Giammichele said. School funding dropped 7.2 percent, and money for the fleet of 13 vans to transport students countywide dropped 10 percent.

The timing might not be the best to try to sell ads, Giammichele concedes, with the recession-prone economy still in the dumps.

The decline in gasoline prices certainly helped, Giammichele said. The large vans, which seat about a dozen students, used about $7,200 worth of gasoline a month when gas prices were near $4 a gallon.

Now that gas prices have dropped, the agency is spending about $4,800 a month for fuel.
Agency officials are also hoping for a financial bump from their annual celebrity golf tournament in May, their biggest fundraiser of the year.

However, the pressure is on to develop new funding sources, as it is for all nonprofit agencies.

Still, Red Apple officials say they are in the same boat as most other nonprofit groups whose private contributions and government funding is being cut.

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