HISTORY OF FRIENDS OF PCS
Friends of Princeton Charter School (Friends of PCS or Friends) is a charitable 501(c)(3) corporation organized under New Jersey law. It was founded in 1997 to support the Princeton Charter School (PCS), a newly established public charter school located in Princeton Township, New Jersey. Unlike traditional public schools, PCS is a charter school and thus receives significantly less per pupil funding than surrounding Princeton Regional schools. Moreover, PCS must acquire and renovate its facilities within its operating budget. PCS has succeeded in this seemingly impossible task only because of the generous support of the school community, and many other Princeton residents and corporations. Friends of PCS has played a pivotal role supporting PCS by holding throughout each year many fundraising events. Since its inception, Friends of PCS has raised well over $1 million dollars and used those monies to finance much needed facilities and services for its great school as described below:
♦ Friends raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate an existing office building into a functional school. Without this support, the school would never have opened.
♦ Friends purchased fencing, extracurricular sports equipment and uniforms, and site work for the athletic field.
♦ Friends helped fund the down payment to purchase and renovate property into the k-4 lower-school classroom building, built-in furnishings for the nurses office and classrooms, and additional playground equipment and site work.
♦ Friends raised over $40,000 to purchase a 24-student yellow school bus for transporting students to after-school sports events and practices that were required to be held off campus do to the lack of school facilities.
♦ Friends donated $115,000 toward the cost of new playground areas, a larger athletic field on the site of the old parking lot, and future athletic facilities.
♦ Friends was instrumental in helping the PCS Capital and Endowment Campaign raise funds for the design and construction of a new campus center that eventually would provide classrooms for art and music, space for performances and assemblies, and a gymnasium.
♦ Friends purchased a state-of-the-art 5-8 science lab, new 5-8 lockers and an art kiln
♦ Purchased more than $250,000 in technology upgrades including infrastructure, software, iPads and Chromebooks to help get our school to a 1:1 student to computer ratio
♦ Friends subsidizes virtually all after school clubs and activities that PCS can not afford under its current operating budget