Pennsylvania school board votes against accepting NRA grant for rifle team

A school board in Pennsylvania on Monday voted not to accept a grant from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for the school’s rifle team.

The Stroudsburg Area School Board voted Monday 6-2 against accepting the grant of $4,730 from the NRA, according to The Morning Call in Allentown.

The grant would have gone to the Stroudsburg High School rifle team. Members of the team at the school applied for the grant, which the school has never received in the past.

{mosads}During the school board meeting Monday, two students spoke about the team’s equipment, which they said was from the 1970s.

School Director Alex Reincke during the meeting Monday called the grant “dirty money.”

“I didn’t want to bring national politics into this but unfortunately we have no choice,” Reincke said ahead of the vote Monday, according to The Morning Call.

“The NRA is a group that has transformed from a bunch of people who liked hunting in the ’50s to something that, quite frankly, is a hateful, divisive group that seeks nothing but to push guns on people.”

Another one of the board members, Director Tameko Patterson, said it’s “not just dirty money, it’s blood money,” according to the news outlet.

Superintendent Cosmas Curry said following the meeting that the athletic department will talk about the rifle team’s old equipment, The Morning Call reported.

The NRA’s influence in Washington and elsewhere has been scrutinized recently after a gunman opened fire at a Florida high school, killing 17 people.

Since the shooting in Parkland, Fla., students have been calling out lawmakers who have received donations from the NRA.

During the March for Our Lives event Saturday in Washington, D.C., Parkland student David Hogg called out Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for putting a “price tag” on the lives of students affected by gun violence.