By Jason Kleinman

The City of Philadelphia Recreation Department has told It’s Our City that it recently received its largest donation to the Splash and Summer Fund. The $110,000 gift will help keep more city pools open this summer. City officials have yet to release the corporation’s name, but the mayor may make that announcement later this week. This contribution represents more than one-third of the campaign’s total donations.

The fund is a three-year effort aimed at raising enough money to keep 30 public swimming pools open through the summer of 2011. As you may remember, in November the mayor announced funding cuts to 68 city pools. Without the money from this campaign, the city says it would only be able to operate 10 pools this summer.

So far, the Splash and Summer Fund has raised $310,000, almost all of which is from corporate donations. There is another $200,000 in soft commitments. The campaign was first announced Feb 5 by the mayor. According to city officials, the fund is still $300,000 short of reaching its goal to keep 30 pools open for three days a week and almost $900,000 away from its main goal of keeping the pools open six days a week.

Despite these shortfalls, Michael Johnson, the Recreation Department’s Deputy Commissioner for Operations, remains positive. “We’re optimistic that we’ll be able to open up 30 swimming pools this summer,” Johnson stated. “The question is how many days a week will those pools stay open.”

City officials originally set a deadline of March 6 for this summer’s fundraising efforts, but the Recreation Department is postponing its decision regarding this summer’s pool openings until the end of the month. It will be airing public service announcements to increase awareness in an effort to raise more money. One of these PSAs, which features the mayor, can be seen in this video:

Individuals and local businesses are encouraged to make donations to keep the pools open. The United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania is managing the fund at no cost to the city.

Major contributors include:

- T.D. Bank - $50,000
- Caplin Family Charities - $25,000
- TastyKake - $25,000
- ShopRite - $10,000
- Villa - $5,000
- Wawa - $5,000

An additional $7,000 has been raised from individuals who made online donations to the campaign’s website.

Jason Kleinman is an intern for It’s Our City and a Master’s of Public Policy candidate at Rutgers University.