Township Sends Out Letters to Nonprofits

Galloway Township Manager Roger Tees issued letters to more than 100 nonprofits on Tuesday requesting donations to the township.

The letter reads, in part:

“We invite you to consider making your own financial gift to Galloway through an annual donation to the Township’s Community Events Fund. This fund, with a dedicated account and specific use set by ordinance, gives the township a resource to provide a range of services without using the general taxpayers fund. Your contribution can have a specific earmark or be made for general use within the Community Events guidelines.”

It is signed by Tees and Mayor Keith Hartman.

The Community Events Fund has been in existence since 1998, and is used to help the township fund community events without using taxpayer money. It is a perpetual account that operates outside the normal township budget.

“We’ll use it to pay for things like movie nights for the community, and whatever it takes to put on an event like that comes from the fund,” Galloway Township Community Services Deputy Director Beth Stasuk said. “ … We’ve used the fund to pay for our shredding event, when residents, not businesses, bring in their boxes of shredding. … It helps contribute to events that go on in the community.”

The current economic climate has made it difficult for the township to continue to hold some of the events it once ran, including concerts, Community Day, Kids Day and Operation: Safe Trick or Treat.

The idea was first voiced in public by Hartman at last week’s Township Council meeting, and originated because of The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey’s $300,000 donation in lieu of paying taxes on the Seaview Resort, which it acquired last year.

“We’re asking that nonprofits make contributions because they do get services, including police and fire,” Hartman said at the time, and a fact that was reiterated in the letter. “We ask that they recognize that and make a contribution.

“We’re not asking for much. Whatever they can afford would be helpful. … It’s not required, but it is the right thing to do.”

Some of the nonprofit groups receiving the letter from the township include:

Macedonia Baptist Church; Church of the Living God 2; S.E.H. Civic Club; Church of God; St. Paul Methodist Church; St. James Bible Deliver; South Egg Harbor Fire Company; Tabernacle Pentacoastal Church; Atlantic County 4-H; State of New Jersey DOT; Holy Christian Church; Atlantic City Medical Center; Betty Bacharach Rehab Center; Family Service Operations; Word of Life Christian Fellowship; Caring Residential Services; Highland Community Church; Bayview Volunteer Fire Company #4; Crestview Development; Jersey Shore Baptist Church; Smithville Conservation Fund; Beacon Evangelical Free Church; Atlantic County Library; Mainland Baptist Church; St. Mark and All Saints Church; Yang Ji Presbyterian Church; Peace Lutheran Church; Lutheran Church of the Reformation; Arc of Atlantic County; Conovertown United Methodist Church; Noyes Foundation; Church of the Assumption; Emmaus Methodist Church; First Baptist Church of Atlantic County; Oceanville Cemetery; Cornerstone Fellowship; Leeds Point Church; New Jersey Natural Lands Trust; Germania Volunteer Fire Company #2; Trinity Alliance Church; Hindu Jain Temple Society; Pomona Protestant Church; Redeeming Love Christian Fellowship Church; Unitarian Universalist; New Apostolic Church; Atlantic County Sewerage Authority; Hebrew Old Age Center of Atlantic County; United Way of Atlantic County; and the New Jersey Highway Authority.