Why doesn’t the Manalapan-Eng-lishtown Regional School Dis-trict Board of Education support the construction of the Manalapan Community Center?
For five years, a group of Manalapan residents were asked by the township to form a committee that would improve the quality of life in our town by establishing a place for our children and teens, residents and seniors to go to have some organized, supervised fun.
Since then the Manalapan Commun-ity Center Committee (MCCC) has been committed to raising money to build a community center in Manalapan, something that is sorely needed in our town. We are one of the few towns that does not have one. Our teens, especially, need a place to go to be with friends in a supervised, safe, friendly environment instead of the mall or a home where parents may not be present.
For five years this committee has struggled to fund-raise the money needed to create such a place. We have asked over and over for the support of our community leaders and the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District board. We have not been as successful as we hoped. We believe part of the problem is due to the lack of some very simple support from MERS school board.
On several occasions, this committee has asked the school board to allow us to send fliers home through school so residents could be informed of fundraising events the committee was planning. Several times we have had to wait so long for permission that we were unable to get the information out in a timely fashion, making our fund-raisers less successful.
When members of this committee attended a school board meeting last year to ask why it was so difficult to get the approval needed, we were quite surprised by the rude, nasty response we were given, particularly by the president and vice president (of last year’s board).
Recently, we again asked the school board to grant permission to distribute a flier advertising our upcoming golf outing. At first, we were told we were denied because the board had been informed that the community center project was not going forward. Informed by whom? Why would we ask for approval to fund-raise for a non-existent project?
The superintendent requested a letter to the board explaining that we are still fundraising and we complied. We were then informed that the board had voted to only let certain organizations send fliers home through the students. These organizations include the recreation center, the YMCA and the Marlboro Players.
What is so baffling to us is why our school board thinks it is permissible to send fliers from the Marlboro Players (an organization that does not directly affect our students) while the MCCC, an organization trying to create this wonderful place for all our students, is repeatedly being denied. What kind of school board would not support such an effort?
It is quite frustrating and makes it rather impossible to let all the parents of our township know what we are trying to accomplish and to be a part of it. We have to question the reasoning behind the lack of support from our school board. Since our fundraising efforts have been slow, we recently asked the Township Com-mittee for help, but are continuing our fundraising efforts until a decision is made. We ask anyone interested in sponsoring or participating in our next golf outing (Oct. 16) to please contact us at (732) 446-8417.
Arlene White
for the Manalapan
Community Center Committee
Manalapan