Northern Lehigh School District thanked individuals and organizations for donations it received at its meeting last week, but took some flak for its acceptance of a donation for water bottles.

Superintendent Matthew J. Link informed the school board last week that an anonymous donor gave $200 toward water bottles for Northern Lehigh School District students.

“This is the amount necessary above and beyond the allocated (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds for the bottles,” Link said. “We are now able to receive the proof of paperwork with our branding on it from a vendor for the bottles, and we hope to process that purchase order next week. Every student in the district will receive a water bottle to use in our water bottle refilling stations.”

Resident Pauline Grady submitted an email that was read by Director/board secretary Gale Husack with regard to money set aside for water bottles for the student body.

“These water bottles were budgeted into the ESSER funds, yet here we are three months into school without the purchase of said water bottles,” Grady said. “Why did we accept the donation for water bottles when this is something that is already budgeted in the school year?”

Link explained, “We accepted the donation because we were contacted by someone who wished to remain anonymous, but has specifically earmarked the money for water bottles,” Link said. “We are working with a vendor that has provided the best quote of the money that we have within the dollars allotted within ESSER for the purchase of water bottles. So when an anonymous donor contacted us and said they wanted to go toward water bottles, we accepted it.”

After the meeting, Link said the initial quote was $3,225.

“This (Monday) morning we received an updated invoice, and the total cost is $3,042 due to the company providing us with a discount via an online code,” he said.

Other donations

• The district received $3,000 from Lehigh Valley Educators Credit Union, to support the district’s Backpack Buddies program. “They continue to be a generous donor to our Backpack Buddies program for multiple years now,” Link said.

• Lehigh Carbon Community College donated five microscopes to the high school science department, and also donated furniture to Peters Elementary from their early intervention program. “LCCC truly are great partners,” he said. “So we are appreciative of the generosity of LCCC back to Northern Lehigh School District.”

• Another anonymous donor who has donated 85 pounds of turkey for the Thanksgiving meals for students in the district. He said the turkeys are coming from local farms, and should be enough for all of the lunches for students in the district.