Donations
It costs money to put on our educational programs and maintain our historic little airport. The airport almost breaks even, pretty good since running a small public use airport is a get-poor-slow proposition at best.
The educational work is paid for by income on our original endowment. We do get nominal fees - from those who can afford them - for attendance at the Air Academies, and we get part reimbursement for some of our after-school programs; but these cover only a small part of direct costs.
Our endowment has been hit hard by the market chaos. (Now, please don't tell us the sad tale of your own investments, that will get us nowhere.)
The short of it is, we need contributions, in any amount, to continue our educational activities -- more than 20 individual programs -- and to expand them. We ask for your help.
We are saving up for several larger projects. We're going to relocate our library and create a thrifty but interesting and educational exhibition and display space in Hangar 1; and we need to build more school classrooms and a school hangar, aeronautical center, and assembly space, all in one. These are "naming opportunities," that is, we would like to commemorate key sponsors of these projects.
We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and your contributions are deductible from income tax as provided by law. You can check out our yearly IRS filings (Form 990-PF) by going to http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/990finder/ and entering "Wathen Foundation" in the search box.
We are also happy to get donations of personal property which we can use in our operations. Recently, one generous donor gave us a complete RV-8A QuickBuild kit, and another gave us a complete Sonex Waiex project, which we will use in a forthcoming youth airplane-building program. If you have a surplus airplane project or parts, construction or groundskeeping equipment, truck, or anything else you think might be of use to teach young people or run an airport, please get in touch to see if we can use it.
Donations can be sent to us at The Tom Wathen Center, 4130 Mennes Avenue, Bldg. 24, Riverside CA 92509. If you have any questions please call President Bill Sawin, 951-683-2309, or email bill@wathencenter.org.
Or, you can donate through eBay GivingWorks (MissionFish) using your PayPal account. Go to http://donations.ebay.com/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=29811, and follow the instructions.
Do you sell on eBay? You can designate part of your proceeds (10-100%) to benefit the Tom Wathen Center. This can be set up on the same website, http://donations.ebay.com/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=29811.
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