Pitney Bowes joins with others to support education equity

The Fairfield County’s Community Foundation (FCCF) in Connecticut recently announced the formation of the Fairfield County Corporate Collaborative for Education Equity, of which Pitney Bowes is a founding member.

With the announcement, this Corporate Collaborative launched its first funding initiative, a $50,000 challenge grant to support Bridgeport Public Schools through DonorsChoose. The non-profit Donors Choose provides a resource for public school teachers to request monetary donations for needed classroom supplies. For this challenge grant, donors who support project requests submitted by Bridgeport teachers will be matched by the Collaborative.

The Bridgeport School system has more than 20,000 students and is one of the largest school systems in Connecticut. The collaborative hopes to fund similar campaigns with DonorsChoose next year for Danbury, Norwalk and Stamford schools.

Calling on our values to make a difference

Our CEO Marc Lautenbach first extended an invitation to other companies in Fairfield County to establish a plan of action for education equity in the area. The founding corporate members accepted the call and are seeking to reduce and eliminate disparities that impact the region’s most vulnerable pre-K through 12+ students, parents, and guardians as well as teachers and staff.

Marc is quoted in the release stating the mission of this group. “As business leaders we have an opportunity to support our community’s economic recovery while also addressing the educational disparities that impact far too many children and families in our county. Now more than ever, supporting education is critical to promoting equity, fairness, and opportunity for all. It is unacceptable that entrenched educational gaps sharply divide Connecticut students along racial, ethnic, and economic lines. Stepping forward to help reduce these gaps is the right thing for all of us, and for all of our stakeholders.”

If you want to support this campaign by helping fund a Bridgeport teacher’s needs, visit the special DonorsChoose page to see the current projects that need funding.