Furniture donation gives Ashby school a new look

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Thanks to a local couple and a Twin Cities company, Ashby Public School is now home to a semi’s worth of gently used office furniture.

It all began with a couple of retired Ashby educators with ties to QLogic, a California-based supplier of storage network solutions with an office in Eden Prairie. The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, learned from a relative and QLogic employee that a bunch of furniture was to be thrown out when the company moved office locations.

Ashby Principal Tom Otte said the couple contacted QLogic management the week of Jan. 7 about donating the furniture, and within days, the school had received pictures of what the items looked like.

“Within the same week we’d gotten a few photos and decided we wanted to arrange a delivery,” he said.

Enter Excel Plastics in Fergus Falls, where a handful of employees have students at Ashby. Excel Plastics connected the school with Larry Pikala of Fergus Transportation, who hauls for Excel. On a return trip from the Twin Cities about two weeks ago, Pikala brought the QLogic furniture to the students and staff of Ashby School.

“Everything was in excellent shape,” Otte said, explaining that the entire endeavor was practically free of charge to the school. “The only cost to us was to pay a small fee to get the furniture on to the truck.”

That furniture includes conference tables, chairs, file cabinets, shelves, cubicle dividers and cabinets on wheels, among other items. Otte said some staff have already decided how to use the furniture. An English teacher, for example, is using some cubicle dividers to create a separate writing lab within her classroom.

Otte credits the anonymous Ashby couple with making the entire project possible.