KANSAS City, Mo. – The terrible information arrived this week in an electronic mail announcing that Men and women to People today Scholar Travel Plans was filing for individual bankruptcy.
The 270 learners, who paid as a great deal as $7,000 just about every for journeys, have been educated that if they wanted a refund they would have to plead their circumstance to the bankruptcy trustee.
In the personal bankruptcy petition, having said that, the after nicely-regarded scholar vacation software claimed it did not have adequate assets to repay most of its financial debt.
It was an inauspicious ending to a student travel software that’s been all-around for a long time.
Persons to People today Scholar Travel is the for-earnings arm of Persons to People today Intercontinental, the nonprofit humanitarian method started out under the steering of President Eisenhower. The two are based in Kansas City and work from the similar office in Crown Heart.
As FOX4 initial documented, Persons to Folks Student Travel Programs’ web page out of the blue went dark this thirty day period. In addition, the group stopped responding to e-mail and mobile phone calls. Mothers and fathers, together with Kate Eich who paid out far more than $7,000 for her daughter to get a vacation this summer time, have been anxious.
“They had been heading to Rome and Athens, and she’s truly seeking forward to it,” said Eich, who FOX4 initial spoke to three months in the past.
At that time, People to People spokeswoman Mary Eisenhower, the granddaughter of President Eisenhower, informed FOX4 that People today to Individuals was obtaining money challenges, but was nonetheless a feasible organization.
This week, it submitted a individual bankruptcy petition with the court docket.
The petition statements the team owes about $1.5 million to collectors, several of whom are college students.
A review by FOX4 of Folks to People’s tax filings confirmed even the nonprofit aspect of the firm has been struggling financially for yrs. The bulk of its profits is put in on salaries, with the the greater part likely to customers of the Eisenhower family who head the group.
People today to People recognized much more than $200,000 in federal COVID payroll relief resources for the duration of the pandemic, but evidently that even now was not adequate to continue to keep it afloat, to the chagrin of dad and mom like Eich.
“My daughter will be devastated, so I have not even told her yet,” she stated.