passive fundraising for Naples schools
Now that the new school year is well underway you may begin to hear the plea from your child’s school Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) to participate in fundraisers. Private and public schools alike rely on fundraising to provide much-needed supplies for teachers, fund enrichment programs, buy new computers, replace tired playground equipment, and book engaging speakers, performances and field trips. If you don’t have the time to volunteer or sell products, there are many great ways to raise money without doing anything (additional) at all.
Most schools participate in a form of “passive fundraising,” where just by shopping at certain stores or restaurants or using a loyalty card entitles the school of your choice to free money.
Cut, Clip, Earn
With more than 92,000 K-8 schools participating in the country, one such program is Box Tops for Education. The labels are featured on the boxes of many popular food items, office supplies, disposable tableware and bags, produce, and apparel such as Hanes packaged undergarments. For every box top label you send in the school will receive 10 cents. All that is needed is a sturdy pair of scissors to cut the label and a school coordinator to collect, count and submit the labels.
After going through the effort of cutting out ten labels, you may wonder, “why do all of this work for only a dollar?” Those dollars really add up, according to Gabriela Chahwan, Box Top coordinator for Sea Gate Elementary School for the past two years. Last year, Sea Gate used its Box Top reward money to give every teacher a $50 gift iTunes gift card to buy teaching apps. Since entering the Box Top program, Sea Gate has earned nearly $32,000.
Last year, Gulfview Middle School used $1,000 of its reward money to purchase a new panther mascot uniform for the school’s athletic and spirit events. This year, the middle school has set the goal of collecting enough Box Tops to buy a large screen television for the school cafeteria, which can scroll announcements and special messages during lunch. Gulfview’s Box Top Chair Karen Hanlon says that to encourage participation, the students receive a token for every ten box tops they bring in which can be redeemed to attend ice cream socials or buy an ice pop while waiting in the bus line.
The Village School, which has earned more than $16,000 since it began participating in the program, is leading Collier County’s schools so far this school year, with the new Mason Classical Academy, Donahue Academy (Ave Maria), Gulf Coast Charter Academy and Sea Gate Elementary rounding out the top five.
Shop with a Purpose
If you shop at Target you don’t even need a school coordinator to earn free money for your school. By enrolling in a Target credit or debit card and designating one school of choice, Target will send 1% of your purchase directly to your child’s principal, to be used however he or she chooses. Even better, you save 5% off every purchase plus free shipping just by using the card. Since the Target “Take Charge of Education” program began in 1997, Target has given $387 million back to K-12 public and private schools. Anyone in your family or in the community can designate the school of their choice with the card.
According to Target’s website, 60 Naples schools and eight schools in Immokalee received a check from Target in August 2014, with seven of those schools receiving more than $1,000. Each of the participating schools had fewer than 100 cardholders who designated that school for the free money, so there is a lot of potential for those schools to earn even more money by raising awareness about the card. The Village School had the largest haul at $1,878 with Laurel Oak Elementary and Gulf Coast High School earning well over $1,300 each.
You may have purchased the bulk of your school supplies already, but Office Depot offers 5% of your purchase of school and office supplies back to the school of your choice all year long. With a goal of “ending the teacher-funded classroom,” Office Depot issues a quarterly merchandise credit to the principal at schools that have registered for an identification number.
We’ve got spirit, yes we do!
You have spirit and dinner, too! Spirit nights at a local restaurant are perhaps one of the most fun ways to passively earn money for your school while feeding your family and visiting with friends. Many restaurants are happy to designate a spirit night for your school where they will give a percentage of all purchases (take-out, too!) made during a specific time period or all day simply by showing a flyer or mentioning the school’s name. Popular choices for area schools are California Pizza Kitchen, Red Brick Pizza, Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt, Il Primo Pizza & Wings, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream, Fuji Sushi Bar & Asian Bistro and Hurricane Grill & Wings. Menchie’s and Chick-fil-A can send a costumed representative to school to promote your spirit night in afternoon car line as a reminder to attend, adding to the excitement and fun of raising money for your child’s school.
All of the passive fundraising money can be combined with other PTO and school fundraisers to enrich a child’s education, according to Nina Birtolo, PTO treasurer at Sea Gate Elementary and volunteer coordinator at Pine Ridge Middle School. A single field trip can run about $5-$7 per child for admission and $100 per bus to get to the venue. Bringing in an author or performance can cost around $1,000, but at least the entire school can benefit from the experience, she explains. Birtolo pointed out that fundraising money also is critical in purchasing new titles for the libraries and new rugs and supplies for the classrooms such as bulletin board materials and printer ink. Sea Gate donated $13,000 in ink cartridges alone last year and $15,000 towards field trips, she reports.
Find out which programs your schools participate in and how much each school earns:
AmazonSmile The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price on eligible purchases to the charity or nonprofit of your choice. http://smile.amazon.com/about
Box Tops for Education www.boxtops4education.com
Target Take Charge of Education www-secure.target.com/redcard/tcoe/home
Office Depot 5% Back to Schools www.officedepot.com/a/promo/backtoschool/5percent
Stacy Nicolau is the assistant publisher of Neapolitan Family Magazine and the mother of 3. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina.