At this year’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, CISCA announced its newly formed CISCA CARES program. The program began within the last year, and the association presented the Washington Shores Elementary School in Orange County with a $2,000 check to purchase books for a summer reading program for the students. This was announced during CISCA’s Awards Banquet on March 26.

The program stands for “Community, Attention, Relief, Engagement and Support” and helps schools attain educational material. It is funded through donations and was spearheaded in part by Johnny Pena of Ace Acoustics in Arizona.

“The foundation started as a pilot program in San Diego,” Pena said. “The idea is that every city CISCA visits, we adopt a local and underprivileged school. In San Diego, we adopted Perkins Elementary School. We filled their library with new books and gave teachers with gift cards, students with ice cream. The intent is in the future, a local contractor, vendor or distributor adopt one of these schools as their own.”

The foundation is funded by CISCA members.