PTO Today

Last year, we decided to have a teacher dinner during teacher conferences. The teachers hardly had any time before to run out to eat, so we made sure we had something nice for them. We purchased nice linens and set up in the cafeteria w/ our new tablecloth, dimed the lights, light candles and had Mums set up on the tables, for door prizes. I made a huge batch of homemade chicken & noodles, had fresh garden corn, and about 20+ donations of desserts & salads. Other PTO members did garlic bread, mash potatoes and more! The teachers were beyond pleased. We had so many volunteers wanting to help feed our great teachers, we had to turn some away! We also had York Peppermint Patties at each of the place settings to kill the bad breath due to conferences after the dinner! Yes, we had table set waiting for them, along w/ serving their drinks for them, they didnt' know what to do!

For the day teachers came back to school after Christmas break, we had a nice breakfast buffet for them. We had sausage, turkey sausage, hash brown casseroles, egg casserole and a few other items, along w/ OJ and coffee. Again, teachers RAVED at the attention we gave them. We again had center pieces of Poinsettias (got them dirt cheap) and used the linens and had mints at their place setting.

For appreciation week in May, we had a full luncheon buffet w/ chicken lasagna and Italian lasagna. Two of us made all the lasagnas and the other PTO member did garlic bread, huge salad bar w/ all the fixings and we had about 15 donations of desserts. Once again, we had so many wanting to donate desserts, we had to turn several away. Again, had the place settings and linens and had Extra Gum w/ a quote attached saying "Thanks for going the Extra mile". Had pretty potted plants to give away too for centerpieces and had so many business donations for the year, we raffled those off while everyone had their dessert!

At the end of the year, to feed 55 teachers for the conference dinner, then 70 for the breakfast and 73 for the luncheon, we spent roughly $300 on ALL 3 meals to feed 198 people!!! The year before, they had lunch catered in for close to $1,000 just for 1 luncheon! Teachers did NOT miss the fancy catering what so ever. They loved our spreads and it was a neat recipe swap btwn everyone too! It was great and all our food was made with L-O-V-E and the teachers knew it and very much appreciated it! If you aren't a perfect cook, not a big deal, just go with something easy for the main course and reply upon other PTO members and volunteers to fill in for everything else! It was great seeing that many people wanting to help and we're just a small little rural community!

What we did was send out a little flyer several weeks in advance telling about the conference dinner, how the teachers have a short time to eat, and you will be VERY surprised how many can donate something, whether it be a pie, something homemade or a quick salad! The desserts were the best and everyone was fighting over our chocolate fountain a Mom donated for the hour w/ a huge tray of things to dunk under the warm, melted chocolate!

Good Luck!

make it a cultural event and ask parents to bring a dish that represents their culture.

We were on a tight budget this year and did not have the time to make a back to school breakfast with only a small group involved over the summer. I checked with the local churches to see if they would be interested in the catoring job. Not only did they do the catoring for a wonderful breakfast they also did all the decorations and mini gifts for the teachers. The fee met our budget and the church raised money for their program. We also picked up new volunteers for the school!

I do off site admin work for a caterer, and depending on how many teachers (I'm guessing about 30), then $500 is a lot for a boxed lunch. You could absolutely do something just as nice (if not nicer) on less than half the budget by picking up deli meat, nice bread, small packages of chips, fresh fruit, cookies and condiments at Wal-Mart, Sam's, Costco, etc.

I agree with everyone else that "homemade" is the way to go. This past year we had several events for teachers to show our appreciation and I wanted to make them special even though we couldn't go crazy with spending. I brought in all of my nice serving dishes and cloth napkins, etc. and treated it like I would if it were at my home. They were so appreciative of the extra effort we put into the event that I don't think it would have mattered what we served. I think that if you show them it's more about wanting to create something special for [I]them [/I]they are unlikley to complain. It actually takes a lot more work to save money by doing the event yourself and I think most people realize that.

Also, we had a very large group of staff that were on diets the second half of the year. I tried to conscious of this when deciding to what to have. I know they appreciated this. We are trying to keep this going for the back to school breakfast next week. Does anyone have any recipes for breakfast dishes that would at least be better than donuts or pastries? We plan on having fruit, low fat yogurts, bagels, etc. but I would love to offer something a little more unique.

Oh, we [I]are[/I] going to splurge on Starbucks coffee for the back to school breakfast. You can get their coffee in to go boxes that aren't outrageously expensive.

Ask Starbucks to donate coffee, Dukin Doughnuts will too if you ask! They sent cups, napkins, creamer, packets of sweet N low and the cups even had lids!! We still had to get more coffee, but only had to pay for 1/2 of it!

Look on Cracker Barrell's website, I think they list their egg casserole on there. Our teachers absolutely loved it! Something new. I have one of those buffet serveres, so we put the meat in that w/ the hot water on to keep it warm through-out the breakfast.

We also had a appreciation breakfast for our bus drivers, who up until this breakfast, had never received anything for appreciation! They were speechless, to say the least! We got a really nice card of thanks from every single one of them!

Going homemade is great, they know you work hard for it, and saving money for it just makes a great thing even better!

I was in charge of hospitality 2 yrs ago and I always had parents and PTCO members donate food. Our local Starbucks donates a carafe of coffee with cups, sugar and creamer. The only money we spend is a few dollars for door prizes. We due a teacher breakfast every month and always have parents willing to donate and the teachers love it. We spend most of our budge on Teacher Appreciation week.

HTH

Karmon

__________________
Karmon
Director of Membership, PTCO
Henderson Elementary