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"60% of Children Suffer From
at Least One Serious Health Issue
Caused by Indoor Environment Problems
in Their School"

Sick Schools Report December 2009, Healthy Schools Network

What We Want You To Do On This Website

Welcome to the Clean Air for Kids Program website. If you are a potential donor, this website can help explain the need for this program and how your money will be used to solve a very well-documented health problem related to indoor air quality in schools and daycares.

If you represent a school, you can find out how to apply for funding for proven technology that improves the indoor air quality by reducing airborne contaminants. We only supply funds that will be used for a school building or childcare setting.

School representatives should simply download the application, fill it out and submit it. We will contact you to get all the information we need to put your schools project on our list. Assuming you meet the requirements, when funds become available, we will help you fund your project. When requests for funding exceed our donor commitments we tend to focus on helping schools serving lower income families in rural communities or inner cities. We use the percentage of Free Lunch Eligible (FLE) to determine the demographics of the school and identify the schools working with the poorer families.

Download and Print These Brochures: School Trifold - Donor Trifold - Donor Newsletter

You may also use this site as a resource for:

Air quality research and case studies on how clean air benefits children
Donating directly to the schools who are asking for funding through this program.
Volunteering to become a Friend of or Ambassador for the Clean Air for Kids Program.

Request to be listed as someone who supports the Mission of the Clean Air for Kids Program

Clean Air For Kids Program is Dedicated to Helping Clean Up Indoor Air Quality for Children

School children and teachers deserve to have healthy indoor air quality, and the Clean Air for Kids Program was started to solve the primary problem and reason all schools do not have newer technology installed that can substantially improve classroom air quality. That problem is lack of available funding and the fact that the majority of the return on the investment goes to those other than the over-stretched school districts' budgets.

We Ask Our Donors to Contribute Directly to the Needy Schools

We started out to create a 501c3 foundation to collect donor money and redistribute it to the needy schools. Drastic changes in 501c3 IRS rules made it much easier to just create a program to get donors to make their initial contribution directly to the schools. This money is targeted to purchase the necessary technology and really helps the schools, which was our primary goal. It also make sure 100% of the money donated goes to the tax-qualified needy recipient. It also helps large contributing donor foundations avoid IRS problems because donating to pre-qualified public schools eliminates all of the risks foundations now worry about when contibuting to a 501c3 public foundation that may fail tougher IRS tests to maintain their public foundation status. Public schools will alway meet the IRS criteria of a qualified 501c3, as described in Section 170(b)(1)(A)(iv), "government instrumentality" of the IRC. Click Here for Details Here is a basic explanation:

While public schools may apply for recognition of tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), this step is not required in order for such organizations to qualify for private foundation grants. Generally, the IRS treats public school districts as government instrumentalities. As such, they are exempt from federal income tax and eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions from individuals under Section 170(b)(1)(A)(iv) of the IRC. Additionally, grants to such organizations, provided that they are for public or charitable purposes, are considered qualifying distributions for grantmaking private foundations.

If you are a donor please consider the tremendous value of your donation. Schools really need your donations so they can purchase the technology they need to clean up their indoor air quality.

If you are a school administrator, school board member on just a concerned parent, you need to apply for our funding program. We fund schools on a first come, first serve basis, so the sooner your school applies, the sooner your name will come to the top of our list. We try to make the application process easy and we are asking for you to assign this to your principals, because they are the ones who watch children show up day after day to use their inhaler in the school office or nurses station. The also see the tremendous health problems that poor indoor air quality causes for their teaching staff.

Almost all school classrooms and daycare centers have high levels of harmful airborne particulates and toxins. The average age of a public school in America in more than 60 years old. Many have serious water damage from roof leaks, storms, flood and other maintenance issues. In fact studies prove indoor air quality can be 10 times more contaminated than outdoor air quality. Children and teachers are required by law to spend seven or more hours per day in classrooms where the indoor air is filled with harmful particulates that can create serious short and long-term health problems.

Investing in new technology proven to reduce these levels can have a significant positive impact on these children's and teachers' health issues. Most schools and non-profit daycares do not have the money or financial ROI incentives to spend precious budget dollars to install this technology because the savings in sick days, out-of-pocket health costs, health insurance costs and missed work costs are ROI financial returns on the investment that actually go to others, not back to the future school budgets.

The investment does provide an estimated 25 times ROI to many others who are impacted by the health problems triggered by poor indoor air quality. There are substantial savings to the families of the children, their employer, their health insurance providers, state Medicaid and Childrens Health Insurance Programs and teachers' families.

The investment does provide direct savings to the school district in teacher health insurance costs and substitue teacher costs. It also provides a key boost to their primary mission, learning and test scores. It can also reduce the risk of lawsuits. In about 14 states, with more pending, increasing attendance levels actually generates higher funding levels. In CA and TX, a distict loses $30 to $50 per day in funding for each day a child is home sick. The ROI from this increase alone might be 300%, which more than pays for the technology, but these schools still lack the needed initial capital funding to purchase the technology. School boards and administrators face increasing substantial legal liability for mishandled Asthma attacks that can cause brain damage or death, or respiratory health damage to teachers and students who are required to work in indoor air quality that has proven air quality health risks, and technology was available, but not installed, to reduce those health risks.

Multi-million lawsuits against school districts have been won by parents and teachers over respiratory health damage caused by air quality problems in schools. New and old school buildings have been bull-dozed after a mold outbreak create a PR nightmare when parents refused to accept claims that the air quality was fine, because their children continued to experience serious respiratory health problems. Schools are also facing new indoor air quality liability from the Americans with Disabilities Act law changes in-acted in 2009. These law changes make Asthma a covered disability and parents can demand air quality be improved so their children can attend school without the need for allergy and Asthma medications. Schools cannot use an excuse of "lack of funds" to avoid providing the required ADA solutions. Some environmental lawyers have declared "Indoor Air Quality" is the next Asbestos goldmine. School districts will be prime targets because so many studies have documented the health damage that is being caused by these problems.

New Technology Ceiling Mounted Air Purifiers Are Now Used in More Than 110 School Districts

More and more schools see the potential benefits of installing classroom air purifiers in their classrooms to help teachers and students stay healthy and have fewer sick days. But funding is always a problem, and at Clean Air for Kids, we work with schools to help them find sources of funding to install air purifiers in more classrooms. You can see the ceiling mounted air purifiers in the classroom photo above.

Any student, parent, teacher, principal, school board member, administrator or child care administrator can apply for funding for one classroom or an entire building.