When an inner city schoolteacher published a letter in the Vancouver Sun last year crying out for help for her students, who needed clothes, food, and school supplies, corporations and citizens alike opened their wallets to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

But a conference happening Saturday, Nov. 3, in Vancouver questions whether schools in need should be saved by outside donors.

Justice, Not Charity is being put on by the Coalition Of Progressive Electors (COPE), a municipal party in Vancouver, to discuss the role of government, charity fundraising, and corporate involvement in inner city schools.

"Charity is no way to fund a public education system -- especially in one of the wealthiest communities in the world," reads a statement from Jane Bouey, conference organizer and former Vancouver School Board trustee, in a COPE press release.

But the conference will also focus on corporate involvement in public education beyond funding inner city schools. Dan Hale, a teacher at Killarney Secondary School in Vancouver, will be speaking at the conference about different district policies regarding corporate dollars and advertising in the K-12 system.

Corporations have been funding sports uniforms, musical instruments, and even fire safety education for schools all over the province for decades. Hale says the first time he noticed a corporate logo in education was in the mid-1990s.

"My daughters were bringing home logoed information from their school, so there'd be a fire prevention pamphlet and it would have a McDonald's logo on the bottom in recognition of their contribution," he told The Tyee.

"I noticed that the McDonald's logo on the elder daughter('s pamphlet) was a certain size, and then five years later that same pamphlet came and the logo was bigger."

Hale was inspired to write his masters thesis on corporate involvement in the province's schools, researching school board policies on corporate donations and recognition in the process. He found very few districts showed any awareness of possible issues around corporate logos in schools.

"(I found) many very simple policies that dealt with community involvement, but nothing around advertising, nothing around proselytizing to students, just 'communities should be able to be involved in schools, and the superintendent will monitor it,'" he says.

Ten years later corporate involvement in schools hasn't changed much, but Hale says the policies in some districts have. Larger districts like Vancouver, Surrey and Richmond have comprehensive policies regarding recognition of corporate funds in schools. But that doesn't mean these policies are followed.

"For instance, my high school has a bunch of pop machines. These pop machines are there to provide funding for various activities in the school," says Hale.

"The school will sign a contract with a vending machine supplier, and then they'll get a cut of the profits and use that to fund things like uniforms for volleyball. But they're selling junk food in them, so they're not actually following their own healthy food policy."

As for other corporate donations that fund events and supplies supported by school board policies, Hale calls for a clear line to be drawn between recognition for the donation and advertising for corporations.

He cites a banner that hung outside Laura Secord Elementary until this week for Beat The Street, a fundraiser for the BC Children's Hospital that encourages students to walk to school and collect points whenever they do. The banner also featured pictures of Ruth and David Jones, local real estate agents who donated money to the fundraiser.

"I'm sure everyone's glad to have the participation of a couple of real estate agents for a local event about fitness in their students," says Hale. "But what they might not be so happy about is giving the appearance that that school, or the principal, or the school district endorse those real estate agents and making people think 'well, maybe I should sell my house through them.'"

But that's not how the Jones' saw it. Residents of the East Vancouver neighbourhood where Laura Secord Elementary resides, David Jones told The Tyee it wasn't about advertising.

"I never thought about it like that," he told The Tyee. "I mean it is sponsorship, and there's certain tax advantages for sure -- no different than anybody donating. We live in the neighbourhood and we believe in giving back, so that's more our angle."

As Bouey says in the COPE press release, however, the aim of the conference isn't shaming corporate donors but calling on government to provide those dollars instead.

"We acknowledge that while the charitable impulse is an admirable one, it is no way to finance an education system," reads Bouey's statement.

"And it is no way to move kids and their families out of poverty. We know that fundraising capacity differs wildly from school to school. These inequities are shameful in a society where prosperity is evident everywhere."

Katie Hyslop reports on education and youth issues for The Tyee Solutions Society. Follow her on Twitter @kehyslop.