OK, so the top prize was $5000 worth of athletic equipment to the winning child’s school, a scholastic gift basket (I assume it is for the winning child’s home — I couldn’t tell what was included here — what, pencils, erasers, writing tablets, maybe?), a $100 Subway card (again I assume that is for the winning child), and the story published on one of subway’s websites (subwaykids.com) and Parent and Child magazine.
Hmm..what would be included in the athletic equipment that they would give to a school but wouldn’t want to give to the child’s parents?
If it’s something that the parents couldn’t accept (say the child lives in a townhouse and the landlord won’t allow a basketball goal to be set up), they could turn it down. Of course I would expect the parents would have to pay taxes on the winnings and the school district would not.
My guess is that the donation to a school is a tax write off as a charitable donation, but they couldn’t do that with a homeschool.