Fairmount: Local Residents and Businesses Support Neighborhood School

With the recent budget cuts in the School District of Philadelphia, many neighborhood schools have been forced to find other options to supplement their funding.

Bache-Martin Elementary School, located at 22nd and Brown streets, has started its own fundraising efforts with help from parents and other local residents. The ‘Adopt a Tiger’ program was designed through the school’s collaboration with the Bache-Martin Home and School Association to help raise awareness about public education and the school’s image to the community.

For just $15, local residents and businesses can purchase a cardboard cut out of a tiger which can be colorfully decorated with crayons or markers. The cut out features the program’s other two partners, the Fairmount Civic Association and the Fairmount Community Development Corporation, and can be seen in windows and outside storefronts throughout the neighborhood.

“We actually play find the tiger with our kids,” said Andy Boczkowski, a father and supporter of the program who currently has one of the tigers outside his home.

J.J. Shirley, a local resident and mother, said she also supports the fundraising efforts.

“The school partnered with local businesses,” Shirley said. “I know there are some streets who see who can decorate their tiger more and it has become a community participation effort.”

Some of the local businesses who have participated in the program include Allstate, Bookhaven, Ellis Pharmacy, Fairmount Bicycles, Fairmount Cleaners, Fairmount Consignment Shop, Fairmount Framer, Garden Fresh, Hickory Lane, Holtzman Tax, Lifesport, Luigi’s Pizza Fresca, Mugshots Coffee House, OCF Coffee House, RyBread, Shaffer’s Cleaners, Urban Saloon and Zorba’s Tavern.

Brandi Davis, resident and parenting coach at Bache-Martin said, “I consider myself an outside person working inside the school,” but has also become an advocate of ‘Adopt a Tiger.’

To find out more information about how to adopt your own tiger and support public education in Fairmount, contact Bache-Martin’s Home and School Association, the Fairmount Civic Association or the Fairmount Community Development Corporation.