Our school has activities that sometimes requires money like a roller skating party, and the cost of the skates are needed. The PTO has covered the students that don't have the funds and would not be able to go if the PTO did not cover their cost. We do ask and are upfront about the student having to work around the school to payback the amount they borrowed. We like to teach our kids that it is okay to ask for help, and that they are able to make something happen through hard work.

For the past 2 years our PTA has purchased all the school supplies for every student in our school. By doing this we helped every family not just those that qualified for services. Many families need help now. For a little over $4,000 we purchased supplies for 390 students. By doing this, we saved our city's assistance league $700 each year. When school started, every teacher had their supplies in hand and they could start teaching from day 1. Many families have expressed their gratitude. It is a project well worth the effort.

We have a Caring Committee that is headed by the school counselor. She decides who is in need. Each child gets a free book under a certain $ amount at each book fair. The counselor does a giving tree for the families at that holidays. The tree has paper mittens and gloves that have a gift request for each family member not jus the student. The Caring Committee also has a set budget for the year.

This past year, we have partnered with a store to collect items for a food drive to give our less fortunate families a Thanksgiving dinner. We provided the store with students to do a fashion show and in return, the employees donated food and gave us 10% off coupons to distribute amongst anyone. It's the stores "Give & Get" program. This way, there were no funds needed to be put out, but we still accomplished the same outcome. We did a similar event with this store, but the employees donated school supplies and we dispersed it evenly amonst our classrooms for teachers to give to the children who didn't have. The children who participate in the fashion show are told what we're getting in return, to give them a sense of helping others less fortunate and they enjoy it.

Our school is a Title 1 school with about 63% of the students on FARMS (free and reduced meals). Most of our PTA programs and events are free. For movie night, the movie is free but snacks are sold for a small fee. Our PTA spends a large amount on field trips, and scholarships for students to participate in after school programs.

during the wintertime, our PTA collects winter clothing for families in need and also collects new holiday gifts for families in need.

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.