Castle Toyota Rescinds Scholarships After Students Decide To Mourn Their Dead Teacher Instead Of Staging A Commercial
Poor Howard Castleman. All he wanted was a little PR for his car dealership. Castleman planned to give four scholarships to students at Patterson High School in Baltimore, but instead of honoring Castleman's charity by inviting the media and displaying his dealership's banner at the senior's farewell ceremony, the school instead decided to honor a long-time teacher who recently died of a heart attack...
Castleman responded by angrily withdrawing the scholarships, leaving the four students without the means to attend college.
The president and CEO of Castle Automotive Group, Howard Castleman, said it didn't have to be this way. "We opted not to give it to them because of, quite frankly, attitude," he said in a phone interview. He said school officials accused him of wanting to bring in a "media circus" and would not allow him to hang his company's banner.
Castleman said that having press at the event would have paid public tribute to the teacher who died, it would have encouraged more people to donate to the school, and "we would've gotten some PR."
[...]
"My family was very excited when they heard I would receive the money from Toyota in order to go to college," said one of them, Iftin Iftin, a Somali refugee who graduated from Patterson on Saturday and plans to study English and computer programming.
When D'Anna summoned the students to tell them Castle wasn't donating the money after all, Iftin said, "I couldn't even smile all day." At night, he said, "I couldn't get sleep."
Castleman also decided to cancel his annual Christmas party for poor Baltimore children, saying "This is it. I'll never have another Christmas party for these kids. It doesn't pay."
Um, the missed lesson here, Castleman, is that charity should be its own reward, not a hackneyed public relations scheme.
Firm reneges on scholarships [The Baltimore Sun] (Thanks to Stanton!)
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Comments:
Heartless, very heartless.
I suppose he's going to defend himself by saying he had this entire plan worked out for months, and these kids and their attitudes had to go and ruin it. What a putz. At least he got his publicity.
[www.baltimoresun.com]
An even bigger putz, the Principal who probably wants the dealership to beg to give the scholarship.
@Angryrider: He DID donate the money, just not to the kids. In reality, according to the article, they weren't supposed to find out until the ceremony.
It's not like they were asking the students to wear a logo on their gowns, on their hats, or made them spell out the name of the dealership. It was a banner, and there would have been a few cameras. I mean, how much "Media" did the school expect to show up for a car dealerships sponsoring of some students? I'm guessing CNN, Fox, and MSNBC weren't warming up the newsvans to rush to cover this.
@statnut: Have you ever gone to see a baseball or football or ANY event at a school? There are banners all over the fences, scoreboards, and anywhere else they can cram them. I personally don't mind because that's a few less dollars that I DON'T have to pay in taxes. Let them advertise. Until they require the students to wear buttons or stick bumper stickers to their asses, it's not bothering anyone.
"Charity should be its own reward, not a hackneyed public relations scheme." - Why Not?
When my company does something on this magnitude we expect some PR, we aren't a non-profit as I sure this car dealership is not.
Call me the bad guy, but the school should have worked with him - not against him!
He's a car dealer. What did you expect. If you lie down with snakes expect to get bit.
What a jerkoff.
Well, I hope this is getting a lot of local media attention and people decide not to do business with that dealership.
And maybe, and this is reaching....Toyota itself steps up and does the nice thing?
My PR blitz would have worked if it weren't for those pesky kids, their dog and their dead teacher.......
Sorry, couldn't help myself
You didn't see the part of the article that said "Inner city youth overcomes one-armed-ness to become car dealership owner; is painted as demon by self-righteous hippies who 'have no business sense [and] view business and marketing negatively as a reflex.'"
Full story after the jump.
Um, the missed lesson here, Castleman, is that charity should be its own reward, not a hackneyed public relations scheme.
I gotta disagree. Companies don't anonymously give scholarships. I have to side with the dealership on this one. The school had very little to do in order to give those kids a scholarship. They didn't fulfill their part of the bargain and thus, hurt these kids futures.
@ ConsumerAdvocacy1010
Absolutely, this guy should get 10x the publicity he had hoped for, only negative. First the holly roller Ford dealership, now this guy. The auto companies need to slap around their rogue franchisees alittle.
He should be thinking in human terms, not thinking inhuman terms.
The dealership did not know someone told the students about the award, they were supposed to inform the students the day of the awards.
He also seems to have told the school what would happen if the banner wasnt allowed. the school changed their mind.
also, it was the PRINCIPAL, not the students that decided to not have a "media circus". You know how much those kids would have just /hated/ being on the local news receiving a scholarship....
The principal is the one who should be the one in the title
Moreso, it seems to be the /dealership/ that has been pushing for local media coverage. not the students/school!
"Even before Thomas' death, Castleman said, his staff had to go through "unbelievable" bureaucratic hoops to donate money to Patterson."
No ad banners at school.
Seems like bad timing and bad choices by both parties involved, however it's not like this is the only advertising you see associated with schools. There's sleazy dealings going on all the time with companies working deals to make schools exclusively deal with them (Coke/Pepsi come to mind). It's just a shame that the scholarships got axed because of all this.
@sleze69:
Exactly right, refusing to display a banner? That school shouldn't expect to see a lot of contributions or scholarships from local businesses with their attitude.
Charity is the last thing this guy had on his mind, What a greedy piece of shit.
Although that's shitty... I can understand where he's coming from. He's offering to give away a lot of money in exchange for some fairly painless marketing. If they pulled their end of the deal, then he has every right to pull his end.
It sucks that the school couldn't just advertise him like expected while still mourning the loss of the teacher.
But what is Mr. Castleman's view on atheists and gays?
Why couldn't Castleman have included it in his own advertising? "Castleman's Edsel - proud scholarship sponsor of Baltimore City Schools" or whatever.
I understand the school's point: these kids lost a teacher and wanted to celebrate his life. The senior farewell became a memorial service and suddenly, sponsorship by a car dealership and a news crew wasn't appropriate.
And why is a news crew appropriate, anyway? How is a car dealership doing anything PR-related news-worthy?
Finally, in what way did Mr. Castleman figure that angrily yanking the scholarships away from deprived children who want to go to colelge could possibly work to his advantage?
Perhaps if Castleman killed himself, the kids would hold a celebration, then he'd finally get the PR he so desperately craves.
What the hell is wrong with the school? Hang his banner and make him happy. I blame all of this on the school. They told him media would be there and his banner would be hanging. So he agreed to donate the money. If you tell a business that if they donate they will get media and a banner and you later take those things away, you damn well better expect the donation to be canceled. If you promise a business publicity for a donation, you damn well better provide the publicity. The school should have at least come up with an alternative. I am sure they could have got a newspaper article to mention it, they could have hung his banner at next years sporting events, etc. But the school is 100% wrong in this situation.
Well at least we can tell Mister Castleman and associates how we feel for free, as he kindly provides a toll-free phone # on the website.
@marsneedsrabbits: Precisely. As tacky as it would be to trumpet your charitable largess, placing your own ad is the way to do it.
Public schools are public. Not the promotional playthings of whoever wants to throw scraps.
@CaptZ: Heh. I laughed. :)
I expect nothing less from greasy car salesmen/car lot owners.
"It doesn't pay"? Greedy f*ck!
This sort of give and take between schools and businesses goes on all the time. At my nephew's elementary school McDonald's pays the cost of printing and mailing the quarterly report cards . . . report cards that are about 1/2 grades and 1/2 McDonald's ad. They even offer a free value meal if the kids maintain a B grade or higher.
I don't know if I agree with McDonald's advertising to the children but it's a win for the school since they no longer need to pay for those report cards and can instead put that money directly towards the kids.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. Robert Heinlein
What? So he wants a little publicity in exchange for his generosity. I'm sure that scholarships are considerably more expensive than advertising in the school paper, advertising on the radio, and advertising on local TV. The dealer can (and probably) does pursue all of these media outlets. But he chooses to go above and beyond and offer scholarships, and all he asks for is a little acknowledgment. He's the one offering the scholarship in the first place. He's not screwing anyone by not offering anything. The school screwed these kids over, pure and simple.
@Albion01: Who the principal or the car delaer?
I mean the principal still wanted the money from the card dealer, for NOTHING. Who is the greedy one?
If I wanted to give you money to advertise, and then you deciden not to do the advertising, should you still keep the money?
Whether or not it was appropriate for the school to display a banner is almost a moot point, this guy should have realized that all the negative PR that was coming his way wasn't worth whatever money he was donating in the first place.
This guy is neither a philanthropist or a good businessman, though I agree that the school certainly was less than accommodating (maybe they could have displayed these banners in another fashion.. yearbook? or if there was a graduation program guide, which most schools have)
maybe castleman got confused and thought he was big bill hell. (colorful language warning)
+ Watch video
@che_leo:
It's a lose-lose situation. The dealership, the students that would have received the scholarships and the school. Any other businesses that might have considered sponsoring scholarships at that school will likely stay far away.
I'm rooting for the Extinction Level Event asteroid(s) to come put an end to all this insanity. Dinosaurs here we come!
So he should have the privilege of paying for nothing in return? Normally, when someone backs out of a business deal/contract (The school), the other has some type of recourse, like suing for lost revenue, or simply not paying for services not rendered or commitments not met.
The school did not do A, so they do not get B. Everyone blaming the dealership is a prick.
I want to point out a few things that were in the local coverage.
1. Castleman says that Toyota requires that any donations over a certain amount get PR or they won't approve it. (The guy was giving dealership funds, not his own money).
2. He wrote the check directly to the local CC instead, to go to scholarships for local kids.
3. The Principal is the real bad guy. Calling it a media circus is a huge overstatement, he just wanted a banner and the local newspaper was supposed to interview the kids.
4. After the fact and the bad publicity he offered the money to the school for more scholarships, the principal refused.
5. The Mayor actually sided with the dealership.
God, the people on this site . . .
Why are "charity" and "altruism" such dirty words in this country? On the one hand, we don't think the govt should provide "handouts," but on the other, we also think private charity is pointless unless there's a transactional/pr/profit point to it.
Sad. Capitalism -- and I'm a fan, btw -- has become a near religious ideology in America.
I'm glad to see so many people siding with the dealership. These knee jerk reactions to blame the guy pulling the money are silly.
The principal is the one who screwed these kids......not the dealership.
@Mr_Human:
Why is it such a bad thing for EVERYONE involved to profit? If the principal would have just done what he agreed to do none of this would have happened. Put up a banner......no big deal.
@donkeyjote: First of all, it hasn't been established that the school agreed to hang the banner as a condition of receiving the scholarships. To be sure, the owner of the dealorship expected it -- but that's not to say that there was an up-front meeting of minds on the subject.
Second, and more importantly, charitable donations aren't like regular contracts -- it's been too long since I took Business Law, but (effectively) the ability to tell others that you're making a charitable donation is consideration in and of itself, so an agreement to donate to a charity is enforceable even if that charity isn't doing something for you in return (other than, of course, letting you advertise that you're doing something good -- which you can do with or without the charity's help, so long as you're careful about respecting trademarks and speaking only truthfully).
@Here_we_go: I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm saying it shouldn't be the point, or the deal breaker.
@Mr_Human:
I agree that doing a charity for the sole purpose of doing something good is a noble act that we should all do but this was something that could have easily been avoided by BOTH parties.
It's just as much the fault of the principal who refused to hang a simple banner. Then the prideful principal refused the donation when it was offered back. Who did that help? Certainly not the students.
@Mr_Human: I agree. If this comment gets me banned, I don't care because I feel so strongly about it right now. I don't know how the best blog in the Gawker community manages to attract the biggest, scummiest, soul suckingest douchebags. I would recommend that every single person who defended the dealership do a little self reflection, but it would be an utter waste of time. I tell myself I shouldn't read the comments, even if they are occasionally informative and intelligent.
Please, Gawker. Do some housecleaning in your comments section. For the love of all things decent and good.
Car salesman is always going to be a car salesman. This guy does not want to do charity. He is using charity's name to benefit his business. The moment he wants publicity with the dealership name, you know what's going on. Someone should call the IRS and remove all those dollars as charitable donation and make him pay tax on them.
@Here_we_go: I don't disagree that this could have been avoided. I'm just despairing a little at some of the comments here. And I found the Castleman quotes obnoxious.
People should read the article. The reason that the principal didn't want media at the assembly was because it was, in large part, a memorial to a teacher who had died and the principal thought it would be inappropriate for such an assembly to be used to publicize a car dealership. Sounds like the right call to me.
The agreement to donate to the charity was a contract, whether written or oral, and one that was not contingent on post hoc conditions like allowing the media to watch the announcement nor was the contract somehow void until the date the dealer thought the students were to be notified. There were still other ways to publicize the donation, such a photos with the recipients and the dealer at a later date.
The donation was only for a mere a total of a mere $8,400, which, in dealership marketing budgets is chump change, so pulling the the scholarship was a totally bogus move on the part of the dealer.
Due to the overwhelming outrage, the public has made donations that have exceeded the withdrawn offer and the principal has, on principle, subsequently refused face saving attempts to re-instate the original donation .
The school should have just hung both banners up what difference does it make?
The guys a jerk and the school's stupid.