Yeah, I'm with Ray.
This week is National School Choice Week.
Anthony from Empower Illinois is here tonight.
We're going to talk about
what this means and means for your kids.
Thanks so much for coming on. It's great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
So this week started well, this week started earlier this week.
Enough
of it.
Tell me a little bit about let's just start with what Empower
Illinois is happy to somehow.
Illinois is a nonprofit organization
that is also a scholarship granting organization
for the Invest in Kids Act.
That's a statewide tax credit scholarship program
that helps kids get into their best fit
private school throughout Illinois.
That's kind of cool because I think it wasn't around
when I was younger, right?
I'm all right about that.
Well, so the law passed in 2017.
I mean, I was around.
Yeah, you're around. Around that.
I know. So this is cool. Yeah.
So it passed in 2017 with bipartisan support.
And the law that passed is called the Invest in Kids Act.
And that particular piece of legislation
created a tax credit scholarship program
where donors make a contribution to a scholarship
grant, an organization like Empower Illinois.
We turn those dollars into scholarships for kids
from low income communities
to attend their best fit private school.
The cool thing
one of the neat things
tax credit, not a deduction on their donation.
So if they give $1,000,
$750 comes right off the top of their Illinois income
income tax.
That's a big percentage. It is. Yeah.
And it's pretty cool
because there are so many people out there who love to help
and maybe you don't have time to volunteer their time
or maybe they don't have like little kids in their life,
but they just love
knowing how cool it is to watch a kid grow and
they are just donating to this.
And it goes to basically a stranger.
But beneath it. Exactly.
So, you know, for us, we believe that all kids
should have access to their best at school.
And, you know, for some kids, that's
And we want to make sure that
for families where the private school
is the best fit, that they have that option as well.
And so this program really is one
very important mechanism and a way to help
make that make that possible.
So because it is National School Choice Week, is that
just hype
and everything up
or is there something special about this week
when it comes to those donations?
Yeah, So so National School Choice
Week is a great opportunity
for everyone involved in this work to really focus on
the most important thing that we do, which is help kids.
And so we want to put kids front and center.
And it also helps us get the word out
to let potential donors know, as you mentioned,
who might want to help and they might be wondering,
Well, what can I do?
And I always say there's there's there's three things.
One is to consider a donation.
The second thing is to advocate to let lawmakers know
that you care about kids and you care about this program.
And the third would be to tell a friend it was joke.
We don't have an affinity problem.
We have an awareness problem that not enough
people know about this, this great opportunity.
And so opportunities like this, this conversation
to share the word, especially here in the region,
it is really important.
Plus, it's like almost time to start doing your taxes.
Well, I guess depending on who you ask over the last year
or so, thinking about how maybe you could be benefiting
from the donation in 2023, it's
smart to talk about it right now.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, so for us,
we open our application for scholarships in January.
So right now there are over 20,000 students in line
waiting for a scholarship and about 300 of those students
right now in the Greater Rockford area. Wow.
So there are kids who want to go to schools and
in the area and need scholarship support to do so.
I don't think about
what awesome lives these kids are ready to have
and learn and absolutely change the world.
And so like being able to help that or probably
I'm guessing whatever amount you can, you can donate.
Yes, you can donate whatever amount you want, except for it
can't be more than $1.333 million suits.
Yeah.
So those of you out here who have $1,000,000 in tax
liability, we'd love to chat with you.
And certainly every
dollar amount and every donation goes to a great cause.
Again, helping kids get into their business.
So how do we get that money to you? How do we donate?
Yeah, so it's really easy.
If you go to our website, Empower Illinois dot org,
that'll have all the information that you need.
There's a button at the top that says donate.
Click on that and it'll walk you through all the steps
to make sure that your dollars are getting to the right spot.
And another neat feature for donors
is that they can actually
designate the school that they would like to benefit.
So if you've got a favorite school,
maybe you went there, your grandkids go there,
it's in your neighborhood.
Whatever the reason might be, you can pick a school
and they'll receive the dollars
and be able to welcome kids private.
Yeah, well, thank you so much for stopping by.
Thank you.
Coming up next, we are off to give you some hot,
dry January ideas you might not expect from artale
wine company.
And then we're air frying grilled cheese.
That's going to be fun.
We'll be right back.