By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
HELL'S KITCHEN — In a climate of school budget cuts that make it hard to keep beloved arts programs alive, parents at P.S. 51 are striving to raise $15,000 over the next month.
The 330-student school, which calls itself "the pride of the West side" for generations of instruction to neighborhood kids, maintains ballroom dancing and creative writing programs that would be impossible to fund without outside contributions, according to PTA president David Dreyfus.
The school, which is located at the epicenter of a major construction project, also need money to support a peer meditation program and a music teacher who depends on donation centers for instruments.
"The school doesn't run itself," said Dreyfus, a neighborhood resident with a son, Jonah, in the second grade. "We have got a great administration and great teachers, but a school is a community … it's important to take a hands on approach for our kids."
To that end, P.S. 51 kicked off its annual online auction Monday on web host BiddingForGood.
Highlights among the dozens of offerings include autographs from the cast of "Glee" on the cover of TV Guide Magazine, amethyst and turquoise jewelry custom made by one parent designer, and an opportunity to replace Principal Nancy Sing-Bock as "principal for the day."
Prizes also include vacation getaways, theater and museum packages and gift certificates to Mud, Sweat and Tears Pottery as well and nail and hair salons.
Along with the arts education programs, Dreyfus said that having a little extra money to spare to cope with uncertain impacts of the looming construction on a new school and residential buildings next door is "certainly in the back of my mind."
"We hope we don't have to pay for stuff like air purifiers or sound mitigation," he said, but noted that having the ability to pay for items like those without waiting for the city "would be a great luxury."
Another parent organizer, PTA co-treasurer Susan Mannix, said that beyond current budget needs, the auction is also critical for building community in a historically school-starved neighborhood about to lose another institution — the neighboring Holy Cross School.
Although Mannix's mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles all attended P.S. 51, she said that many neighborhood men and women of her generation attended private schools like Holy Cross, because in the 1970s, P.S. 51 struggled.
Now, under Sing-Bock's leadership, Mannix said it's improving so markedly that she pulled her own two sons out of private school to attend.
But she said she still worries about the lingering problem of budget cuts coupled with an old pattern of parents sending their kids to school outside of the neighborhood. That's why, in her view, collecting sufficient funding is so important.
"I love P.S. 51 — they're really happy kids over there," she said. "I'm hoping we can keep this going."
