I don't think spending the money on these outreach programs is wrong either. I will say it does show conflict in terms of what the Processing foundation should focus on.
It could be that many of Processing's donor's had the assumption it was being developed as a creative coding tool (which I think its excellent as). As far as being a tool to introduce programming, I don't think its bad, but there are better tools/approaches. Personally, I think starting with whatever the browser interprets is very accessible, and is very relevant to modern programming. Start with HTML, CSS and eventually move to turing-complete things, like Javascript. Don't jump right into Java or even Javascript.
It could be that many of Processing's donor's had the assumption it was being developed as a creative coding tool (which I think its excellent as). As far as being a tool to introduce programming, I don't think its bad, but there are better tools/approaches. Personally, I think starting with whatever the browser interprets is very accessible, and is very relevant to modern programming. Start with HTML, CSS and eventually move to turing-complete things, like Javascript. Don't jump right into Java or even Javascript.