PTO Today

One of our most profitable fundraisers is "Photos with Santa". Our school mascot is a Mustang. We have a student wear the costume then dress him/her in a Santa outfit. A parent volunteer who works for a billboard company created the backdrop of a snow covered farm. We purchase polaroid film, place the mascot in front of the backdrop, allow kids to take photos with Santa (group shots are welcomed) during their PE hour. We charge $3 per photo. The kids, even the middle schoolers, go crazy for it. Most often kids will forget their money on the first day of photos; therefore, we allow this fundraiser to run for two days.

Mustang2 - if you search for dreamcatcher and select "message board", rather than "articles" you will find dlf's post.

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Make it a great day!

Here Mustang--I've cut and pasted...d

Hi North--well long story short--about 2 years ago I fell down some steps and broke my neck. I'm fine but as I sat in a brace in the chair of my living room (still going back and forth to the PTO offices and school mind you), it dawned on me how difficult it is for our special needs parents to attend our "regular" functions. Of course they are always invited, but the reality of wheel chairs, special food requests etcetera makes it more difficult and not much fun for the parents. With the major muscle coming from our special needs teachers and our assistant principal, we started Dreamcatcher's Day. Held on a Saturday it is a 3-4 hour event that is designed specifically for our special needs children. We come up with games they can play, use their favorite equipment (like the parachute), we invite those children that have been particularly helpful in our school to be their special buddies so the parents can socialize and we attend to the food needs for the children and the adults. After lunch we all head outside for 2 rounds of t-ball after which the children all get called up for a t-ball trophy. We have also these past 2 years had t-shirts donated and make special hats for the children.

It is a wonderful day for all of us who participate and really makes you feel blessed to be a part of giving our families that may not always feel comfortable attending our events a time designed with their enjoyment especially in mind.

d

Our school does Book Bingo every year and it is a big hit. We have a small school (around 125 students). Each year, we take our entire book fair profit in books. Scholastic gives us 50% of our sales in books. Even after we give each student a free book at the book fair and we give the teachers books for in their classrooms, we have tons of books left over. The teachers take turns calling Bingo and every winner gets to pick a book from the table. Sometimes, the teachers get creative and give away more than one book, or the person next to you gets a book, pick a friend, etc.
We also have a concession stand and sell things like hot dogs, fries, meatball sandwiches, snacks, etc. We buy most of the food, but we do ask for donations of baked goods. We usually end up with a slight profit, but that's not the goal of the night. It's a lot of fun and the kids and parents love it.

The dream catchers info is under "new ideas for upcoming year"

For evenings, we have a Family Movie Night in October and will do a dance in February. We're looking into a family bowling night for this year.

During the day we have Jack Frost Day in January, where we decorate the lunch room and give icecream or popsicles out to the children.

We sponser a concert to kick off PARP and sponser an assembly in April. Last year we got the local Monkey guy to do a nice educational show on monkeys. He brings 6-8 monkeys along, the kids loved him! Parents are invited and can bring the younger kids.

This year we have planned 2 Membership Drives. We are currently holding the first one and will do the second one around March.

BooGrams, Halloween Safety Night, Fall Festival w/auction. We ask local business to donate items such as musuem tickets or zoo tickets. We also have all the teachers think up a fall theme and then the students bring in donated items to go along with that theme and they create baskets out of them and we auction all of that off.

We will do a Supper w/Santa which will be much like a Christmas version of the fall festival, of course with Santa there for pictures.

We also have our Lunch w/families. One week is lunch w/Mom and then the next week with Dad and then with Grandparents. We have our camera set up with a nice backdrop and sell the pics for 3 dollars.

Valentine Grams and Bunny Grams and a Spring Fest.

We will also be doing Market Day and Book Store 2 days a week and Friday snacks which is our biggest money maker, we normally make 300-400 on Fridays and normally only spend about 100-150 for the food.

Our goal for this year is electronic signs for the school. Our school is only 3 years old and we don't have entrance signs yet. We had the money donated for one sign and our goal is 15,000.00 for the other one. We just had our budget meeting today and if we stick to budget we should well meet that goal!

Oh I also forgot we will be doing D.A.R.E, a 5th Grade Dance, Teacher and Staff Appreication Week, Field Day and Red Ribbon Week.

We've already had our school spirit wear sale & done the School Mall magazine sale. We're working on a Fall Festival and a haunted house. We do box Tops contests year round. I'm hoping we do a few game nights or other nights.

What are the ...Grams, the Jingle Bell Jog and Marketday???

We do Sham Grams where we cut out clover and the children come and address them to other kids and we deliver them. We attach a good luck coin or one of those green and white swirl candies. Marketday is a national program that allows parents to order prepared foods that they can just heat and serve. It is very popular with some folks who become loyal customers and our group makes about 250 a month with it. The Jingle Bell Jog is just a 45 minute little get together one day after school. The kids all get jiingle bells and in class groups run around the school to holiday songs. Then they come in for cookies and milk and to write letters to Santa. It's a silly little thing but one of the purest things we do during the holiday. If the weather is bad the principal lets us blast the carols in the hallway and the children come through the halls ringing their bells.

d