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National corporate giveback programs raised more than $100,000 for local schools last year, but some programs disproportionately benefit schools with wealthier students, a Gazette analysis shows.
Target has donated $324 million to schools across the nation since 1997 under its Take Charge of Education program, which provides 1 percent of purchases made with a Target credit card to a cardholder’s school of choice.
Cedar Rapids schools have received more than $390,000 from Target REDcard purchases since 1997.
Of 24 Cedar Rapids elementaries, the 12 with the lowest share of students who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches received 63 percent of the money that went to elementaries, compared with 37 percent to the 12 schools with poorer children.
Coolidge Elementary School, which has 20 percent free/reduced eligibility, received $20,016 from Target’s program since 1997. This is more than triple the $5,914 for Polk Elementary, which has nearly 90 percent free/reduced eligibility.
In the Linn-Mar School District, the three elementaries with the lowest free/reduced eligibility got 69 percent of the $74,343 that went to the district’s seven elementary schools. Linn-Mar’s total from Target since 1997 is $130,500.
Jennifer Glanville, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Iowa, said schools with higher rates of free and reduced-cost lunch are at a disadvantage in the program. “Their parents might have less access to credit cards,” Glanville said.
Other factors, such as proximity to a Target store, might affect how much a school receives. The Cedar Rapids’ area has two Target stores — one in the northeast quadrant and the other in the southwest quadrant. Johnson County’s only Target at Coral Ridge Mall is a 20-minute drive from some schools on Iowa City’s east side.
The top Iowa City recipients of Target payouts include some of the wealthier schools (Wickham and Weber elementaries), but Coralville’s Kirkwood Elementary, with nearly 61 percent free/reduced eligibility, received the fourth-largest amount among Iowa City elementary schools.
Target did not have nationwide information about how Take Charge of Education giving compares with free and reduced-cost lunch numbers.
“One of the great things about the TCOE program is that it allows guests to designate a school of their choice to receive 1 percent of every REDcard purchase,” spokeswoman Jenna Reck said in an email to The Gazette.
Box Tops for Education, another popular corporate giveback program, doesn’t seem to favor schools with fewer poor children, according to recent totals available online for schools in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Linn-Mar.
This could be because everyone buys food products like cereal and soup, and it just takes time to clip and save labels, the UI’s Glanville said.
Box Tops for Education, launched by General Mills in 1996, has given American schools $400 million based on the number of box top labels redeemed.
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