Greetings and Welcome Back Whitney!
Did you have a good summer? These first few weeks it has been great to connect with old friends and meet new ones.
New and RETURNING Parents (Grandparents and Guardians too!), you have a wonderful and significant role in your student's development. There are many ways you can participate in your student's education and one of the more fun ways is through the Parent Teacher Organization. Did that say fun? Yes! Whitney Elementary School's PTO ROCKS! You determine your level of involvement and that doesn't mean coming to every meeting or feeling obligated to sign up for every activity or even one. Join us September 12 @3:45 PM in the Whitney Library for our first PTO meeting of the year. Choose how you want to contribute whether that be by coming to a PTO meeting every once in a while, signing up for Trunk or Treat or committing to saving your old toothbrushes for the TerraCycle program!
One of the PTO's finer functions is to raise money for the school. I, myself, am the sort of person that defies traditional PTO molds and created my own PTO niche. I found that I LOVED figuring out new ways to raise money for the school. This Blog has several links like the Amazon.com and Coupons links that are both monetized. What that means is that if you click on those and make a purchase through Amazon or PRINT coupons by clicking on the coupons link, small amounts of money are given to the school in what is called a referral fee. There are people out there who make a living doing this, why shouldn't the school raise funds doing the same thing? I also discovered that it's not just Capri Sun packages that we turn in to raise money but also toothbrushes, candy wrappers, wine bottle corks and even used make up containers! I dedicated a small space in my garage to this collection effort and now I send in two or three packages per month. During the 2010-2011 school year we raised $174 from collecting garbage and shipping it for free to TerraCycle.net.
Our very talented and very pleasant fundraising coordinator, Kara Souza, is also the Box Tops for Education coordinator. We raised the potential of what we can do last year by bringing in a whopping $1621, an increase of almost $1200 over what we had brought in prior to the 2010-2011 school year.
What do we do with the money? Last year the PTO helped out the school by buying toilet paper, copy paper and paying for a test proctor. We also added coat hooks to the hallway adding a new level of safety to the hall (piles of backpacks might prevent kids from escaping the building efficiently in the event of a fire) and it is a good hygiene practice.
What is your homework? Think about how you would like the PTO to spend money. Would you want a fund set aside to bring in fun science, technology, engineering and math tools? Would you like to see a scholarship for Whitney Alumna to help them with their application fees into colleges? What do YOU want to see? Your homework is to think about that and then come to the PTO meeting and share those ideas with us!
Your other homework is to go to www.terracycle.net and see if any of the items on the list are things you routinely throw away. If so, those are things YOU can bring to the school on Fridays and place in the TerraCycle box at the front doors. For example, toothbrushes and toothpaste containers, any kind will bring us $.02 each. It doesn't sound like much but it does add up.
Oh, and I almost forgot. When you go to Albertson's or Fred Meyer, watch your receipt for an extra piece of paper that includes BOX TOPS!! I have put the Albertson's on Vista on the alert and they will are willing to hold Box Top Catalina that pops out of the register that gets left in their recycle bin for Whitney. If you mention you are with Whitney and a bundle of Box Tops is thrust upon you, fear not. You may send those on to the office who will direct those to either Kara or to me and we will enter those codes for you if you do not wish to do that work.
Welcome back to school everybody! It is going to be a great year.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
I enjoy couponing and often times find pretty screaming good deals on "stuff" like office supplies. What kind of things is the school most in need of?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
John
This is an excellent question and I'm very glad you asked. Last year we (the PTO) bought toilet paper, cleaning supplies and office paper. Yesterday the PTO decided that instead of waiting until the office ran out of paper we would buy paper when it hit rock bottom prices.
ReplyDeleteIf you find white office/copy paper very cheap, we would be grateful if you picked some up and donated it to the school. Please, share your deal find with us on the blog so that those who are also able to can buy paper and donate it to the office as well.
Great question John, thanks!