PTO Today

Hello!
I am a new volunteer to our school's PTO. And I have been tasked to come up with a October gift idea for our teachers and staff. Our PTO has very limited funds for hospitality, and I was wondering if anyone has any inexpensive and simple ideas. Thank you for all of your input!

If you have to do indiviual gifts, I would go to your local Dollar Tree or other everythings a dollar store. There you could get some nice fall themed coffee mugs and then you could buy a couple packs of hot tea and get each teacher a coffee mug, tea bag and maybe add a small lotion or bath salt or something else that might be appropriate for a male teacher. Just some suggestions. Depending on how many teachers you had you could put together a whole gift bag at the dollar store for hardly nothing.

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

One year, we did votive candles with a bit of seasonal ribbon tied around them. Very easy, inexpensive. I think we added a card thanking them for "lighting the way" for students.

For something inexpensive, I've always liked the candy poam. Ten or so bags of candy, which does play into the whole Halloween concept, can be used to pull this off, and most of the staff will enjoy it.

The Candy poam can be found on this site.

PresidentJim

We've cut way back on the amount of junky stuff we buy for the teachers, members and the kids.

We stopped the pins, magnets, pens, keychains and jar openers and have actually made a statement about it.

We set a note with our membership forms saying that we opted to not spend $500 or more in PTA funds to buy a little token gift to send when asking for their membership. We're being more conservative both with the money raised as well as our impact on the environment.

People were very welcoming of the idea.

For the teachers, we used to do some mug or plastic apple full of candy or what-not, but found they were more appreciative of a candy bar or something consumable.

One year during teacher appreciation week at our elementary, we bought apples for all of the teachers, I wrote a little thank you poem to go with them and put one on each staff member's desk. This time of year apples are relatively inexpensive.

You can also coordinate parents to do a monthly snack- send in muffins, fruit, cheese and crackers. Our parents always respond very well to bringing goodies for the teachers and this is a no cost for the parent group(except maybe for napkins, paper plates).

You know though, every time we did something that included a little note or poem we got more comments from the staff on the written words then the food/gift.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

I am both a teacher and parent. Time is a gift. Give a homemade gift certificate for class coverage, copies to be made, hall duty coverage, lunch duty coverage whatever side duties the teacher may have. It will depend on the amount of volunteers you have. I have found many love the certificate but maybe 20% actually cash them in.

Also on Jim's poem idea. I took a big jar and placed candy like smarties and wrote a quote onthe bottle. " Thanks for helping to make our kids smart." It was cheap and everyone goes to the faculty room.

Words are nice too. Have the students or parents create a "tree of thanks" you place a trunk made of paper on the wall, the kids fill out a leaf with a thank you on it and you fill in the tree. The hard part about this is making sure everyone gets a leaf. Then you place the leaves in their mailboxes at the end.

Food always works, but some teachers are weary. So you may want to think of prepackaged or store made.

Hope this helps's, remember that the little things go just as far. Good luck!!

I do little candy bars each month. I get whatever is on sale and put a sticker with a little saying. The staff loves it and it costs about $25-40 to do it for everyone!

Snickers-we are nuts about our teachers and staff
Milky Way-Our teachers and staff are out of this world

Things like that. It is pretty easy!

Mini Kleenex packs are great if you get them at the dollar store and say "your hard work is nothing to sneeze at".
I stocked up on glue sticks and put "We can be the best school if we stick together"

Good luck!

I like the thought of giving small items that could be used in the classroom(like the kleenex and glue sticks). I know many teachers who spend a lot of their own money on supplies. Here are some others I thought of:

dry erase markers= You're leaving your mark in our children's hearts
construction paper, paints, brushes, scissors=You're creating masterpieces of education everyday.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

Along the individual snack lines:

Create your own candy wrapper for a mini snack (like mini Hershey bars) that say, "Teachers make learning sweet!"

Distribute animal crackers and include a note that says, "This place would be a zoo without you!"

All of these ideas that you're sharing also work well for the often-overlooked custodians, cafeteria staff, office members, etc.