Does your PTO or PTA set aside money to help less fortunate families in your school with field trips, PTO events, or other needs? How do you handle this? Who decides who gets the funds?

~Lisa


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We do have a budget to subsidize field trips and afterschool enrichment class tuitions. All requests go through the school counselors, and they make the final determination. No parent group officers/committee chairs are involved in the review of the family's situation, and the funds for the field trips get paid to the school, so we have no idea who actually gets the money. For the afterschool classes, the school counselor still makes the determination, but then the afterschool program coordinator does find out who the family is because she has to adjust the invoice to the family.

I know another local school sets aside an amount each year to cover other basic needs like school supplies and clothes. Again, the counselors figure out who gets the money, and then it is paid to the school.

Our group (Badger Parent Group-West Bend, WI) has supported specific families in our district. We have completed this in several ways. Each year since I have been president, we have provided the school social worker with $500.00 in grocery store gift cards in December. These gift cards go to families in the district who are in need of a hand up. Last year in our community there was a large apartment fire. Several families (3) and twp teachers lived in the building. Our group supplied each family with $150.00 of gift cards to Walmart and the local grocery store as way to give them a little something to get back on their feet. This year at Christmas we decided to sponsor a school family and provide each child and the parents with gifts. We donated $350.00 worth of shoes, clothes and toys to this family. Our goal is to let all families in the school know that we are there for them, not just academically but also socially. We all know that if a child doesn't have a coat, school supplies, etc. they will not be able to complete their work as needed. It is important for schools to come around these families in need and help in any way possible. We look forward to opportunities to help our school families, in whatever way possible.
Thank you
Jackie Mages
President
Badger Parent Group

Part of our budget is allocated each year to what we call "Heart-to-Heart". It is also a line item on our membership form - PTO members can contribute directly to the fund, which in turn enhances the budget for that specific year. The money also rolls over if we have excess.

The program is anonymous and facilitated through a faculty member who is a member of the PTO. The specific needs of a student, or his/her family, are usually brought to the school guidance counselor who approaches the faculty member with that need. Sometimes it's helping to pay for school supplies or for a student to be able to attend a specific function. We have had instances of home fires or families where a parent has been striken with a catastrophic medical situation. Sometimes gift cards to Wal-Mart or a grocery store are provided. Electric bills, etc. are NEVER paid.

It's an extremely successful program and has helped so many of our students and families. A small group of faculty and PTO members make the decision on whether to allocate or not. It has gotten a great reputation throughout our school and on occasion groups that have raised funds for other things have donated a portion of it to the Heart to Heart Fund.

we had a santa shop in early dec. and part of the funds from that went to makeing 3 gift baskets for 3 families and then we had a school dance in dec and asked the students to donate can food items for the baskets and we had 3 turkeys donated.

I'm glad to see this topic come up at this point as it's something that our ASB & our PTSA is considering. We are an Early College High School where the students go to high school classes AND college at the same time and are about 2 years ahead of the average high schooler in terms of finishing college. It's always been the intention of the ASB to start a "Fellowship Fund" but it's only now that they have come to us asking for "seed money" to get things going. We told them that we'd be happy to give them some if they were able to tell us what the criteria would be in deciding who might be able to be helped through this fund, as we feel there should be some key components that should be required that they meet. ASB wants us to be involved in deciding and we aren't so sure that we should be, as we don't want any of our families to feel uncomfortable. We think that if students know of a need with one of their classmates, they should let the ASB advisor or the school counselor know about it and then we're not sure how it should proceed from there....I'd love to hear other's ideas about how to address this.