Although the official springtime box top collection deadline was in March, parent groups often collect all year long and many find year-end contests are a great way to motivate and reward collectors.
A recent response to our Facebook question on box tops, shows many parent groups are planning parties or prizes for the families or students who bring in the most box tops by the end of this month. At least a few schools will be doing pizza parties for the winning classes. One school reports it will give a family movie basket to the top collector, while another plans to give out gift cards to local establishments. Yet another said it would provide an inflatable slide or obstacle course for an upcoming Field Day if the school reaches its collection goal.
If you are interested in other year-end ideas or collection strategies in general, check out our message boards, where there are lots of threads like this one on Box Tops contests.
We’ve featured some serious collections in PTO Today stories and clearly incentives help fuel these programs. In one article about Box Top Champs, collectors also offered this advice to help a program:
- Have a healthy competition between classes or grades.
- Post class contributions on a bulletin board in a central place.
- Provide themed collection worksheets.
- Keep families informed about special collection opportunities as they come up.
- Update families about the program periodically in newsletters.
For those of you who are looking for collection sheets for summer, check out or File Exchange where you can download collection sheets like While You Take a Summer Dip, Make Sure You Remember to Clip!
Also, the File Exchange has several Box Top Certificates and Awards that you can download, edit and print for your winners!
Happy clipping…and good luck with your contests!
