Amazon is linked into the community in other ways that often end up benefiting Amazon. In 2016, the company donated 25 Kindle Fire tablets to Campbellsville kindergarten and first grade classrooms. It also donated $2,500 in “content.” The town schools are increasingly buying supplies from Amazon for a total of about $50,000 in the last fiscal year, records show.
“We want to do business with those in our community, those paying local taxes,” said Chris Kidwell, finance director for Campbellsville Independent Schools. “It’s kind of a good-neighbor policy.”
The county school system, with 2,800 students, is dealing with state budget cuts. One way it has made up some of the shortfalls is by selling corporate sponsorships. Taylor Regional Hospital bought the naming rights to the health services room; Campbellsville University did the same for an education center. Amazon is not a corporate sponsor.
“We’re proud to have them in our community, and we would be proud to have them as a corporate sponsor,” said Laura Benningfield, the assistant superintendent.
Last spring, the local library was the recipient of a $10,000 gift from Amazon for science and technology education. Amazon planned to supply whatever the library wanted by ordering the material through its own site. As this article was being reported and Amazon was emphasizing what it had done for the town, the company just sent the library the cash.
“We’re on the receiving end of a blessing,” said Tammy Snyder, the town librarian. The library, like other public institutions in Kentucky, is dealing with the state’s largely unfunded pension system. Proposed changes that involve the library’s paying significantly more “will bankrupt us,” she said.
Justin Harden, 35, said he had no illusions about Amazon. He and his wife, Kendal, recently opened Harden Coffee, a popular meeting spot, on Main Street.