[JB987]

It is not entirely correct to say that no registration money paid to FIRST is ever used to help pay for a regional. In fact there are occasionally situations where a planning committee is unable to raise the complete amount needed to pay for their regional (say when a major sponsor backs out last minute, or local economic circumstances result in difficulty raising enough funds to fully pay for all of the costs of an event). In these cases, FIRST has been known to help make up for the shortage. FIRST also returns some funds to Regional Directors by way of a few hardship grants used to lend a hand to some local teams coming up short on funds needed to make registration fees.