Box Tops for Education
April 18, 2008Take a look at General Mills’ Box Tops for Education website: http://www.boxtops4education.com. Through this program, companies donate ten cents for every mailed in box top clipped from specific food and home products. When an entire school body participates the box tops accumulate and the money adds up fast. This is a much easier way than grant writing for schools to receive funding for supplies they can not afford: from paper and ink to technologies, better internet access, and computers. Have any of your schools participated in this program? On the website you can look up how much money schools have earned through the program. Many schools have earned over $6,000 over the course of 6 years! What are your thoughts on this program? Grant writing is a difficult process that only the trained can do. What are ways other than grant writing for schools to earn money?
First off, such a cute idea to bring into Grant writing! I looked up my school, and the larger metro-area school in the area, and neither of them were listed. Which is wierd because I remember participating in this fund while in grammer school. Wierd. I think that programs like this (if you participate) would be a great way to add extra cash for things that no body wants to spend money on (crayons, pens..boring stuff). I also know that Target does something similar to this sort of thing.. check it out:
http://sites.target.com/site/en/corporate/page.jsp?ref=nav%5Ffooter%5Fcommunity&contentId=PRD03-001811
Oh my gosh, my mom saves box tops ALL THE TIME! She yells at me if I throw a box out and forget to cut out the box top. Anyway, I looked up my middle school on the website and we have earned $3,724 since 2002. I think that is awesome! While it did take 6 years, it is better than nothing. Plus, it’s not a difficult thing to do. I think that it is a great idea that all schools should participate in. One thing that alot of our sports teams did was bottle drives or candy selling. These are ways schools could raise money as well.
I found this website with some cool fundraising ideas: One thing that it suggested was “Read-a-thons.” The website point out that “parents avidly support this type of school fund raiser as it does promote a school activity while raising funds for other programs. Students really get into this type of fund raiser as they compete with the other classes in the school. The principal sometimes sweetens the pot by offering an incentive for the success of the fund raiser, such as offering to shave his beard or come to school dressed in pyjamas.” I think that this sounds like could be extremely successful and fun! Did any of you do a Read-A-Thon in your school?
Stacia
Sorry, i forgot to put in the link above! Here it is:http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article31337.html
Well it took me a minute to find my small, pathetic middle school, but it turns out Stillwater Elementary School has raised about 3,700 dollars since 2002! I remember collecting box tops as an elementary school student, and I remember having more than the others because I used to eat ridiculous amounts of cereal. I don’t think for a second that this is as efficient as grants, however. The training required to write a grant is worth going through, provided the school is in true need. I could not find a site with statistics as to how many grants are accepted and how many are denied, but knowing our government, it’s probably around half… There are several other ways for a school to raise money, as I learned by going to the site Stacia provided. The Halloween and Easter ideas are excellent.
Just talking about Box Tops for Education completely brings me back to elementary school when my mom would have a whole zip lock bag of them for me to bring in or scold me for almost throwing away an empty cereal box without removing the top first. I think this is a great way for schools to earn money for supplies and other things they can’t afford. I really just think that our government should already be distributing money and supplies themselves to the schools that desperately need it without having to go through all these grants. This is an extremely serious issue in our country and I think that the value of our future generations education should really be placed as a higher pripority than it is right now. I do understand that some districts are more priviledged than others but they just shouldn’t be the case when it comes to education. Everyone should have the equal opportunity with equal resources to learn.
Unfortunately my school wasn’t listed on the Box Tops Education website, but I do know that my aunt participates for Vestal’s school district. I think this is a great program to become involved with and it is an extremely easy way to earn much needed money for school districts that are in need. If only more schools and students would participate in this program (including mine) it would be an amazing and productive way to receive help with supplies. Grant writing, on the other hand, is a little more difficult to do and isn’t always a successful attempt to receive aid. I know that my school district uses this tactic to try to reach out for help but it is never a sure thing and usually is unsuccessful. I agree with Meghan that the government just needs to step up to the plate and distribute funds to schools that need it the most. It’s ridiculous that schools need to basically beg the government for money to support them and their programs, but I don’t see any other options. I’m not exactly sure if there are many more ways to raise money for schools but to just keep pressing on with reaching out to the government and hope for a response.
I think there are many organizations willing to aid in providing these essential technologies in classrooms. It would be amazing press, as well as beneficial to the schools. The Box Tops program is a great way to earn money; it is easy and efficient. Like Ashley said grant writing is difficult and doesn’t always work. It is funny that a food company is a more stable way to earn money for this cause than our own government. There is something wrong with our priorities.
I remember my mom frantically cutting the box tops out of our cereal boxes, putting it in envelopes, and having my sister and I bring them in. I think that this a great idea because everyone is included and has an opportunity to help out. I looked up my elementary school and since 2002, the school has earned more than $4,000. I think that is unbelievable. Another way in which schools can raise money is by having fundraisers. I think that this is the easiest thing to do. I like what Bryan said about having the food company more invested in schools than the government. I never thought of it, and it is surprisingly sad that this is true.
Alexis
I dont ever recall my mom cutting the off the tops of cereal boxes, but I do remeber collecting Campbell’s Soup labels. We used to collect the labels and then bring them to school and submit them to the library. I am sure this is much like the cereal box top idea. I think fundraisers are key in schools. Kids love to get incentives for working the hardest. It’s a win-win situation. I think all of these things that companies are doing to help students in schools is important and fantastic!
Kaitlyn
I don’t remember bringing in boxtops in school, but after I looked it up my school has earned 12,312 dollars since 2002. That is a lot of money!!! Seeing this and now looking back at the new school that was built about 3 years ago, it is probably the most technologically advanced school in our district and area. The 12,000 + we earned is being put to good use. I’ll definitely have to ask the current intermediate schoolers when I go back to work this summer they helped bring in box tops.
When I was in school we used to have bake sales and sell many random items such as cookies, wrapping paper, and magazines. I used to get really annoyed selling tickets for everything, but now realizing the lack of money some schools are funded with, I see how practical it really is.
As I was looking up money raising ideas for school, I ran across this article that discusses online fund raising through “charity malls”. The article describes it as “These charity malls allow people to raise money for a school by making purchases online. The charity mall gets a sales commission from the online merchant that averages about 5% to 8% of the purchase price. The charity malls pass on a portion of this commission to whatever school the shopper designates. The percentage received by the school differs for each mall.” which I think would be a great idea for some schools. If students have to purchase a book from amazon.com, a site that is mentioned, some of the money could be donated to the school. I definitely want to research more about this option. The site is http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/33.
I think this is an awesome program. I think it is more helpful in elementary schools because many of the snacks the students are sent to school with have the box tpops on them from fruit roll ups to cereal. Its also effectice to have classroom competitions to see who can have the largest amount of box tops
This program is a great way to initiate the idea of philanthropy in a child’s life. I remember in my elemnetary school, each class was to have a goal as to how many box tops to raise in order to recieve an ice cream party or some other fun incentive. So, of course, every student wanted to try his or her best to bring in as many box tops as possible. The only problem with Box tops today is that they are on some of the more unhealthy snacks, which can be expensive as well. The company should expand a little more and distrubute the fundraiser on juice boxes or even water bottles and healthy fruit or vegetables packages.