More fleecing of American taxpayers... Caribean vacations.

Resort trips got federal money

A Fattah-backed group had city students go to the Caribbean for an education program.

August 04, 2011|By Joseph Tanfani and Mark Fazlollah, Inquirer Staff Writers

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The Marriott Frenchman's Reef resort on St. Thomas, where Overbrook High students…

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A nonprofit backed by U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) spent more than $2 million in federal funds to provide environmental education to Philadelphia high school students - including trips to a resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For three years, the Caribbean-American Mission for Research, Education, and Action ran an exchange program for students at Overbrook High School and two island high schools.
The Philadelphia students and their adult chaperones stayed at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef beachfront resort, on what the hotel website calls a "luminous white sand beach framed with the majestic turquoise waters of the Caribbean."
Fattah's longtime friend James P. Baker Jr. was paid as much as $142,000 annually to run the organization, far more than usual for charities of that size. One federal audit said students on one trip spent "less than half" their time learning about the environment.