WASHINGTON, Utah (KUTV) — A company raising money for charity has been accused of making false claims.
Employees from the Washington County School District videotaped a group of people raising money for suicide prevention over the course of two days in Washington County at a Wal-Mart and Harmon's Grocery shop.
The people claimed all the money would go to help prevent suicides in Washington County Schools.
Our Crisis In The Classroom reporter, Chris Jones, working with officials at the school district, discovered that was not the case.
In one of the videos, captured on a cell phone, one woman told a district employee when asked if all the money goes to local schools, “Yup it stays right local,” she said.
Another fundraiser, soliciting donations outside of a grocery store, told the same employee, “Yeah, so, we’re doing it for Washington County.”
However, Crisis In The Classroom, working with district officials have discovered that not a penny of those donations is guaranteed to go to Utah.
Steve Dunham is the spokesperson for the school district, he said before digging into the case, he had no idea who these fundraisers were.
"Washington County Schools is not working with them, you can't say you're fundraising for Washington County School District when you're not, we've never received a penny from you,” Dunham said.
We’ve discovered that the employees work for a private fundraising company called Prolific Solutions.
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