ANTI-DEFICIT DONORS ROLL OUT THE DOUGH

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 4, 1993                   TAG: 9303040084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
ANTI-DEFICIT DONORS ROLL OUT THE DOUGH
Can just a spoonful of sugar, a cup of flour and a pinch of salt make the deficit go down?
Inspired by a North Dakota teen-ager who donated $1,000 toward paying off the nation's $4.2 trillion debt, optimists around the country are holding bake sales for the U.S. Treasury.
And the Eskimo Pie Corp., smelling a sweet opportunity, said Wednesday it will give the government 5 cents for every box of its chocolate-coated vanilla ice cream snacks on a stick sold between Monday and April 4.
Such public spirits were stirred after Larry Villella sent the government $1,000, money he made selling a gizmo he invented to water trees. The 14-year-old entrepreneur was thanked last week in a personal call from President Clinton.
Now, fifth graders at Stewart Elementary School in Oxford, Ohio, reported raising $278.50 this week peddling trays of Bill Brownies, Gore Goodies, Capitol Hill Cookies, Tipper Toffee and Oval Office Oatmeal.
The staff of the Divide County Journal, a weekly newspaper in Crosby, N.D., analyzing news developments over coffee, decided to hold a bake sale next Saturday and send the proceeds to Washington.
Other donors are simply reaching into their wallets.
Quakers in High Point, N.C., gave $523 toward federal deficit reduction after Melita Haning asked the High Point Friends Meeting members to donate $1 apiece.
Donations to dent the 13-digit deficit are welcome, said Pete Hollenbach, spokesman for the Bureau of the Public Debt, where an account for such gifts set up in 1961 has netted $24.4 million.
In a typical year, $1.5 million is received. The only government soliciting comes in the instructions with the Internal Revenue Service 1040 income tax form.
"They're kind enough to deposit the money in our account," Hollenbach said.
Donors should make checks payable to The Bureau of the Public Debt, and enclose a note saying the money is for debt-reduction. The address is: Bureau of the Public Debt, Dept. G, Washington, D.C. 20239-0601.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB