Impressive Fundraiser

The parson’s old friend Buddy “Roll Out” Hathaway had invited him to speak at a community meeting. The parson had readily accepted, mostly as an excuse to travel halfway across the state to visit with his former high school classmate. Now, the morning after the speech, the parson was walking to his car from Roll Out’s office at the school where he was a part time teacher and part time administrator.

Roll Out had convinced the parson to talk a longcut through the campus in order to show him the new athletic field.

“Look at that,” said Roll Out, “this new artificial turf makes this school the envy of every sports program in the area.”

“It looks impressive,” said the parson. “How did you get the board to approve this expenditure.”

“Oh gracious, Parson,” said Roll Out, “the board didn’t put a dime toward this. We raised this through private donations from businesses in the community and through some fundraisers by the football and soccer boosters. No, sir, this was done with a dime of school money.”

“That’s really impressive,” said the parson. “What did this cost?”

Roll Out broke the numbers down for the parson, the turf, the installation, the markings so it could be used for both soccer and football.

“Have you ever seen a high school athletic field any better than this?” asked Roll Out.

“I truly have not,” said the parson. “Let me ask you something, Roll Out. How many furlough days, without pay, were the teachers required to take last year because of the economy?”

“Let’s see,” said Roll Out as he closed his eyes and mentally calculated. “I think it was six.”

“How many will they have to take this year?”

“Oh, this year it’s ten. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just thinking how it the booster clubs and all these local businesses had a fund raiser to supplement your teachers. How many furlough days do you think this field would have covered? You know, Roll Out, doing that would really have been impressive.”