Question: food at PTO meetings

Is it a legitimate PTO expense to provide food (pizza, coffee) at general PTO meetings? If so, how common is that practice?

Asked by ask99

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
Yes, and it's pretty common to provide drinks and snacks. It's perfectly OK to spend money on making parents feel welcome and making your volunteers feel happy and appreciated. Sometimes parent group leaders think that every dime should be spent on "the kids." Well, creating an atmosphere where parents are more interested in getting connected to the school and volunteering is benefiting the kids and the school as a whole. Spending a little money on food and drinks, or volunteer appreciation, or even organizing a parents-only get together is a positive for your group and will have long-term benefits.

Community Advice

badpants writes:
We have a Social Chair, whose job it is to purchase drinks for our group meetings. She is reimbursed by our group. We ask our parents to bring appetizers or desserts to meetings, with each grade having a designated month, beginning with 8th grade in Sept. The 8th grade parents also happen to be responsible for covering playground duty that same month. The social chair also in the past, coordinated the catered dinner at our December meeting and the May dinner for installation of new officers and the lunch/dinner we provide for our teachers durring Parent/Teacher conferences. All of which are paid for by our parent group.