Community Board 13 needs some cash.
The group, representing Coney Island and Brighton Beach, is launching a fundraising campaign. The money will help keep the board’s administrative office afloat during trying economic times.
“We are broke,” Community Board 13 Chair Marion Cleaver said at the group’s meeting last week. “That’s from our budget being cut over $9,000 and the budget starting at absolutely nothing.”
With the decreased budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the board “will have enough money to keep the district manager. We’ll have enough money to have copy machines. We’ll have enough money to have phones. We’ll be able to pay the rent − that’s from a separate budget,” Cleaver explained.
However, the board would lose its assistant district manager, part−time secretary, money for postage and “all these different luxuries in life,” Cleaver said.
To raise some funds, T−shirts emblazoned with the board’s newly created logo are now for sale for $20 a piece.
The board’s overall goal is to become a 501C3 organization, thereby allowed to raise money independently. Many community boards already operate as 501C3 organizations and “have been taking donations,” Cleaver noted.
“We’re going to become a 501C3, which means we can have fundraising and we don’t have to bother anybody,” Cleaver said.
The board is even taking an inventive approach to raising cash. Board members have been asked to donate lackluster presents they’ve received and would otherwise re−gift or toss aside.
“If you have any gifts that are sitting at the bottom of the closet, dust them off and bring them in to the office,” Cleaver said.
The items will be sold at the upcoming Brighton Jubilee, which “is very heavy with traffic,” Cleaver said.
