BERNE — After a summer of media scrutiny of Kenneth’s Army over two different issues — one based on incorrect Enterprise reporting — and a looming question of whether the group was using funds appropriately, the not-for-profit provided key insights at a sparsely-attended meeting last week. 

The incorrect report had stated that Kenneth’s Army was required to register with the New York State Attorney General’s Office Charities Bureau; however, because the group makes less than $25,000 per year, it is exempt, according to state law. 

With regards to the money, the not-for-profit does not keep much cash on hand. According to the most recent bank statement, Kenneth’s Army’s checking account held just $1,399.20 at the end of August. 

“That’s what we [use] to pay our bills,” treasurer Claire Ansbro-Ingalls said at the meeting, which was held at the Berne community center, elaborating that the account also covers incidental expenses, “like birthday cards” and any one-off donations the group makes, such as the $1,000 the group announced it would send to the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. 

Kenneth’s Army also made numerous charitable donations to the surviving two sisters of the group’s namesake, Kenneth White — a Knox resident who was killed by his 19-year-old cousin when he was 5 years old — and to their adoptive mother Linda Dunn, as evidenced by copies of checks that The Enterprise reviewed at the meeting.

It was Dunn who initiated scrutiny of the group when she asked in a letter published in The Enterprise this summer that Kenneth’s Army stop using Kenneth’s name, citing the emotional impact she said it has on the young girls and what she felt was the group’s absence of support for the family. 

“There has been no guidance, love, or support from Kenneth’s Army for Kenny’s sisters for several years other than small birthday and Christmas gifts,” wrote Dunn, who now lives with the girls in Florida.

Specifically, Dunn said she felt that the group, using Keneth’s name, should pay to fly the girls up from Florida, where they now live, to attend this year’s motorcycle run, which featured a dedication ceremony for a park bench and sign for the road leading into the Berne Town Park that were both installed in Kenneth’s memory.

“Something as beautiful and meaningful as the dedication of a park bench and the naming of the park’s road in Kenny’s name on June 4 is an event that Kenny’s sisters should be in attendance for,” she wrote. “… The Army’s inability or unwillingness to provide support for the girls to attend the June 4 dedication is more evidence that it’s time for Kenneth’s Army to separate itself from Kenneth White and his family.”

Ansbro-Ingalls pushed back on Dunn’s claims last week, stating repeatedly at the meeting that donations Kenneth’s Army made to Dunn and Kenneth’s sisters were not “mere gifts.”

“Over the past few years, since they were involved in us,” she said, “we donated over $5,000 to them … including one for $900 because she wanted to take them to Disney. We did do that. We had given her $500 on the day of their adoption. We had given her $1,000, it says, for a donation because she needed money after the adoption of the girls. 

“We don’t mind helping,” Ansbro-Ingalls went on. “We will help all the time. But I don’t think $1,000 is a mere gift. I think that’s a nice amount of money considering we’re a small organization.”  

In response, Dunn told The Enterprise, “First of all, I never stated that they never provided any ‘guidance, love and support’ for the girls, only that it had been several years. Cheyanne and Christine’s adoption was over three years ago. The contribution to the Disney trip was an unsolicited donation from them and never requested by me. I have never asked them for financial support of any kind.”

Dunn had also written that the group took in a donation that was specifically granted for the purpose of covering airfare. Ansbro-Ingalls said last week that the $400 donation was made by a regular donor who suggested that it might be used for airfare when the group was supposedly considering whether it would be able to pull off the expense, but was not made exclusively for that purpose. 

As for the decision not to fly the family up for the run, Ansbro-Ingalls has said, and repeated at the meeting, that covering transportation was impossible because it would rope the group into legal vulnerabilities unless they sprung for an insurance policy, to say nothing of the sheer cost of airfare. 

Other funds

The rest of the group’s money is in a savings account and scholarship account, according to the bank statement shared by Ansboro-Ingalls. 

The group’s savings account holds $3,329.90, which serves as an emergency fund that’s tapped whenever the checking account runs dry, Ansbro-Ingalls said.

The scholarship account had an end-of-August balance of $8,022.91 — enough to fund a $1,500 scholarship at Berne-Knox-Westerlo Central School District, where Kenneth was a kindergartner, for the next five years, Ansbro-Ingalls said, in case anything happens to the group in the interim, or there are down years in donations, as there reportedly were during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We cannot touch that,” she said. “That’s promised to the students of BKW … We cannot and will not touch that, no matter what, so that in case anything should happen we can still do the scholarship at $1,500.”

Altogether, the three accounts held $12,752.10. For context, the group made just over $7,000 at its most recent motorcycle run in June — its sole fundraising event — which pulled in more than in previous years, potentially because people rallied following the publication of Dunn’s letter and accompanying coverage by The Enterprise. 

Dunn, and some supporters with a relationship to her and the girls, wrote in various letters to The Enterprise that they questioned how Kenneth’s Army was spending its money.

“An annual scholarship for $1,000 and the adoption of a family for Thanksgiving does not explain what they do when they raise over $7,000 at a motorcycle run they’ve been doing for eight years using Kenneth’s name,” wrote Elaine and Tom Person.

State registration

The other pressing matter that Kenneth’s Army hoped to address at the meeting, which was attended by six people, was whether or not it was legally required to register with the New York State Attorney General upon its formation. The Enterprise wrote in July that the state was not in possession of any registration documents as revealed by a Freedom of Information Law Request, and incorrectly concluded that this put the charity at odds with state law.

As it says in state statutes, any organization that brings in less than $25,000 per year is exempt from registration and does not need to file an exemption form. 

First Deputy Press Secretary Morgan Rubin told The Enterprise in July, “It looks like this organization has 501(c)(3) tax exemption from the IRS, meaning that [it] likely should have registered with the office. It doesn’t look like they have, which is why there were no records to produce the FOIL.”

The Enterprise had incorrectly written that the only groups exempt from state requirements for filing reports, according to state law, are educational institutions, those that are collecting donations on behalf of an individual (such as someone who has started a GoFundMe drive), and organizations and societies that are chartered by the state’s Board of Regents and fundraise internally. 

Ansbro-Ingalls said at the meeting that the attorney general’s office told the group that, “Unless we make over $25,000 a year — even if we had four fundraisers — unless we make over $25,000 a year, we are exempt from having to file with the attorney general’s office.”

The attorney general’s office could not be reached this week despite repeated inquiries from The Enterprise. 

When The Enterprise first asked Ansbro-Ingalls in July about the lack of registration, she said the group relied on the guidance of attorney Paul Hyams, who could not be reached. 

Kenneth’s Army recording secretary, Dawn Gibson, said at last Tuesday’s meeting that the group “has the option” of providing their bylaws and their employer identification number to the attorney general’s office, “but we did not have to. I reached out to the attorney general’s office and said ‘This is the results I came up with, should we be doing anything else?’ They said, ‘It’s entirely up to you.’”

The meeting was attended by five people, excluding The Enterprise reporter, who were all there in support of Kenneth’s Army. Most criticized The Enterprise for the way it covered the events as they unfolded and offered their sympathies to the group. 

Cathy Shultes said that she was not interested in reviewing any of the evidentiary material put forward because “I was never concerned.”

Berne Councilman Albert Thiem, meanwhile, said, “You have my support. My absolute support.”

Turning to The Enterprise reporter, he continued, “You should have your truths straight before you publish things. There should be truth in media. How do you sleep at night doing that?”

News10 meteorologist Tim Drawbridge, who has ties to the group, said, “When you do journalism, it’s two sides. And there’s a lot of growing and learning that you see every day and, yeah, like I stated on the record, I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years. Not just weather — graphics design, technical stuff … There’s a lot that goes into doing the right things.” 

Ansbro-Ingalls lightly defended the reporter, saying she “honestly believes [the reporter] will do the right thing” following the meeting.

“He will write a retraction and state that he has seen, with his own eyes, the proof,” she said. “And if he doesn’t, then I have lost all respect for reporters everywhere.”

Name change

Gibson said at the meeting, as Ansbro-Ingalls had all along, that Kenneth’s Army will not change its name, citing the difficulty involved in doing so and the collective agreement of the board that it’s not necessary.

“First off, we are not Kenneth White’s Army,” she said. “We’re Kenneth’s Army. He is not the only Kenneth that is out there. The second part is, up until the most recent articles, anything that was posted, if the girls do a search on Facebook, or do a search just through Google, we are supporting them day one. There’s pictures from the Berne school when we did the first candlelight vigil within a week of his passing.”

“I would be proud if those girls do a search of Kenneth’s Army and see what we’ve done,” she also said. “I don’t think there’s one person out there that regrets one day of being [in the group] … We have done nothing but good for the town and the surrounding areas. So when the girls are old enough to do their own search, I hope they can look at it and say, ‘This was for my brother,’ not, ‘Oh my God, there’s his name again.’”

At the Sept. 27 meeting, pictures were shown on a laptop that depicted the girls at Kenneth’s Army events looking generally happy, which the group pointed to as proof against the statements made by Dunn and her supporters. 

“Asking Kenneth’s Army to drop Kenny’s name and likeness has never been about money or Kenneth’s Army’s support,” Dunn said this week. “It is strictly about the emotional well-being of Kenny’s sisters and for some reason they don’t seem to comprehend or care about that.

“I had planned to attend their meeting Tuesday night but had to cancel my trip due to the hurricane here in Florida. I would love to have been there to be a voice for Cheyanne and Christine as this request to Kenneth’s Army is just as important to them.”