Top Ten Ways to Support Your Kid’s School (and a giveaway!)

One of the things I love about my kids’ school is the parental involvement.  The teachers do an excellent job of tolerating the well-meaning parents who are always hanging around, waiting for something that needs laminating. 

There are other ways to be involved though.  Behind-the-scenes parents are important too, especially in the fundraising area.  If your kids’ school is involved in any of these programs it’s easy to particpate.  If not – step up and initiate it.  The worst thing I’ve heard about running a program like this is that people don’t always clip their Box Tops neatly.

1. (West Michigan) Paper Gator - So easy it’s sick.  Just save up your newspapers and dump them in the garbage can with a cute alligator on it.  The school gets money for every pound of papers, and your recycling cart is not overflowing.
2. (Midwest) Meijer Community Rewards -  For every dollar you spend, a percentage goes to the school.  You don’t have to get a Meijer credit card to do this; you just have to remember to give the cashier your card to swipe when you are checking out.
3. (Michigan) Spartan Cash For Labels -  Bring labels in from Spartan Brand products, and the school turns them in for cash. 
4. (West Michigan) Family Fare School Days and:
5. (West Michigan) D&W School Days -  Schools will each have a specific code shoppers give to the cashiers when checking out.  Get the code from your school, and put the dates on your calendar.  Family Fare and D&W will then send a percentage of sales from those days to the school.
6. (West Michigan) TRIP - The school purchases D&W gift cards at a 3% discount, and then sells them to parents at full price as a fundraiser.   Family Fare has a similar program.
7. (Michigan) Great Lakes Scrip - Similar to TRIP except for tuition-based schools, a portion goes to the tuition.  We did this for preschool and it really made a difference!
8. (National) SCRIP - Same as Great Lakes Scrip, just a different organization running it.
9. (National) Campbells Labels For Education - Parents bring labels in from Cambpells products, which the school exchanges for money.
10. (National) Box Tops for Education - Kind of the mac-daddy program.  These Box Tops are everywhere, including Totinos Pizza Rolls which I was sent to review.  The only person in my family who was a big fan was my husband, but he is in school himself so they make a perfect after work/before school snack for any 37 year old students you are responsible for feeding! 

I was also sent a sweet backpack with a new binder (love!), a pack of highlighters, two giant glue sticks, a calculator, AND a coupon for 25 Box Tops I can take right to school and drop in the little collection box. Oh, and also a pizza.  They want one of my readers to have the same package (including the Pizza and Pizza Rolls!), so sign up to follow me on via RSS feed, email, twitter, Facebook.  You can do all four if you’d like – you’ll get an extra entry for each one! 

Leave a separate comment for each entry, or if you already follow/tweet/like/subscribe – let me know that too.  This contest will close Saturday, September 18 and I’ll notify the winner by email so make sure I have that.  Good luck! Go get involved!

Prize package and review packaged provided by General Mills through My Blog Spark; opinions are my own.  This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday at Oh! Amanda.