 Hallsville PTO Winter Semester 2008 Newsletter
Our mission is to enhance the cooperation between home and school to benefit the education of children and youth.
Wow! Can you believe it? The school year is half over! We hope that your children are having a great year and that 2008 is off to a great start! Did you get a chance to participate in a few of the PTO activities last semester? Whew! We were very busy last fall! Our activities included:
- Ice cream social
- Gravy with Grandparents
- Fall Fundraiser
- Family Movie Night
- Candy-Grams for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas
- Fall Festival
- Create-a-Gift with the Mudroom
While some of these events were fundraisers to provide items and events for the school that otherwise would not be possible, some of the events were simply organized to bring families, teachers and the community together in a fun atmosphere.
Get Involved!
We won’t be quite as busy in the spring semester, but still have several events and activities for which we will need volunteers, so it's still not too late to become involved! There are opportunities to help with Candy-grams, Staff Appreciation week, Roller Skating and Middle school parties.
As always if there is something we are not doing well or if you would like to see something done, please contact one of the members of the leadership team. |
PTO Fall Fundraiser Report
Middle School, Intermediate and Primary students did a fantastic job with the fundraiser! Our profit from the Cherrydale Fundraiser was a whopping total of $17,652.94 (up about $3,000) from last year. Here are the results for top sellers in each building and top classes:
Individual top sales ($25 cash for each one):
- Primary – Daulten Lucas $949.50
- Intermediate – Colton Knowles $480.50
- Middle – Nichole Tennison $544.50
Top Classes that earned pizza parties for most $$ sold:
- Primary - Mrs. Pemberton (K)
- Intermediate - Mrs. Elwood (5th)
Top classes that earned pizza parties for most % participation:
- Primary - Pemberton (K) with 67%
- Intermediate - Ms. Lockwood (4th) with 70%
MS - all who participated got coupons for a slice of pizza at lunch, there are no class awards.
Special thanks to Penny Fadler, treasurer & fundraiser chair, to all the volunteers, to all the students who sold, and to the patrons who purchased items.
These funds allow us to provide over $11,000 to the school for teacher requested supplies, field trips and scholarships. We will use these dollars to supplement activities like Gravy with Grandparents, classroom parties, Create-a-Gift Night with the Mud Room and the upcoming spring semester activities.
In our next PTO meeting on February 11th, we will decide on what type of fundraiser to conduct next year. We have gone with Cherrydale Farms for the last several years and may consider changing to another company. We would appreciate any comments good or bad regarding this. Please contact one of the members of the leadership team with your opinion.
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PTO Sponsors Gravy with Grandparents September 4th-13th
At the second annual Gravy with Grandparents, 269 grandparents enjoyed a breakfast of biscuits and gravy with their favorite student. Several grandparents traveled over two hours that morning to participate! Students proudly showed their grandparents around the school, introduced them to teachers and their classrooms. The grandparents enjoyed the event and for some, this was their first opportunity to visit their grandchild’s school.
Families Gather for Movie Night
Around 55 children and their families attended the PTO Family Movie Night on October 12th. Everyone enjoyed watching “Chill Out, Scooby Doo!!”, eating popcorn and wowing the group with their best Scooby Doo impersonation. Thanks to Tammy Keffer and Vicki Stremke for organizing this and to those parents and teacher that helped.
PTO Fall Festival 2007
A building-bursting crowd of students, their families, teachers and community members gathered at the Intermediate Building on November 10th, 2007 at the PTO Fall Festival! Carnival type games lined the hallways and kids visited each to gain a stamp on their passport, which when full could be entered into a bike give-way drawing. A boy’s and girl’s Trek bicycle were generously donated by J C Drywall. The winner of the girl’s bike was Kylie Johnson and the boy’s bike, Jared Lockwood. About 65 area businesses donated items for the silent auction, adult raffle and kids raffle. The silent auction raised $875. Several local businesses and organizations were invited to set up booths; some brought donations and interacted with the kids. A chili supper was provided by the local Boy Scout troop. The carnival was made possible with the help of many volunteers, which included parents, teachers, high school students and school board members. While the goal of the carnival has always been more as a community builder, it built upon its financial success last year, and earned a profit of $1160.38!
Special thanks to Amy Bartlett, Fall Festival Committee Chair and her committee for organizing this wonderful event.
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Candy Grams
Three Candy-grams have been held so far; Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Participation in the Primary, Intermediate and Middle Schools has been fantastic. For 25 cents, students can send a message with candy or other small token attached, to a teacher or classmate. It's fun and a great way for students to build friendships and show appreciation to their teachers and staff. The students have really enjoyed sending and receiving them. Proceeds from the Candy-grams so far are about $500.00 and we still have two more to go! The money earned from these will go directly to a building fund to purchase items such as playground equipment, library books etc., that can benefit all students. The next candy-gram will be February 11th-13th. Watch for announcements.
Save the Box Tops for Education logos
We concluded a very successful Box Top for Education Label Drive this fall. Thanks to all of you for saving those Box Tops! Mrs. Turner’s, Ms. Heet’s and Mrs. Forbis’s classes were the winners in the Primary Building and Mrs. Bartlett’s and Mrs. William’s classrooms were the winners in the Intermediate Building. The winning classrooms were treated to hot cocoa parties. A new campaign began January 3rd and will run through March 7th. Please continue to save Box Tops ! Last year our school earned $1100.00!!! The money goes directly to the school and not into the PTO budget. Last year the school purchased playground equipment. So save those box tops!! For more details about the program go to www.boxtops4education.com.
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Create-a-Gift with the Mudroom
We had a great turnout for this event held in early November. Erin Kespohl, of the Mud Room did a great job of partnering with PTO to hold this affordable activity for our families. We had 54 families ordering 136 plates. It was so great to see families coming together to paint the plates. Such creativity! Why, in one family, each member worked on a plate to create a coordinated set of Halloween plates! Held at a time so the projects would be finished by Christmas, many families stated that they were painting plates to give as gifts. PTO has held this activity for over seven years and it continues to be a popular, family focused event. We typically rotate projects over a three year period. Look for mugs next year, followed by ornaments the following year.
Many folks mistakenly think that this is a moneymaking project for PTO. In fact this is one of our larger expenses. There are two parts to the cost of this event, greenware and glazing fees. The money PTO collects from participants is for the cost of the greenware, the plates this year. We send this directly to the Mud Room. PTO pays the additional glazing fee/supply fee for the projects. PTO budgets to payout double what is taken in. This year we paid $665.00 for the 95 painters participating. By paying this fee, we hope to make this activity more affordable.
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PTO Leadership Team
Jennifer Blumer, Co-Chair, 696-0941, jblumer@centurytel.net
Laura Kabrick, Co-Chair, 696-0059, kabricklr@aol.com
Penny Faddler, Treasurer, pfadler@hallsville.org
Suzanne Stillwell, Faculty & Web Contact sstillwe@hallsville.org
School Website: www.hallsville.org For PTO's site, go to the Parent Resources page and scroll down to Hallsville PTO. http://www.hallsville.org/parents/PTO/index.html
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