We have a huge budget set for feeding these teachers. I am upset about it. We even get some teachers that complain about us sometimes running out of this free donated food.Which is mostly catered!!! I wanted to cut the budget. The pres, who is a teacher by trade insists on this as a good morale booster. Anyone out there have an opinion?

We served breakfast and lunch during Teacher Appreciation and had most of it donated by local restaurants and grocery stores. Domino's donated pizza and breadsticks one day, Coke donated drinks, restaurants donated baked potatoes, a grocery store donated all the toppings, another restaurant donated the cole slaw, a church donated breakfast drinks, a bank donated restaurant-prepared breakfast sandwiches, etc. We were very blessed!

It has been a tradition at our school to have parents prepare meals for the teachers and staff on Conference nights. The teachers are at school all day and cant leave to get dinner as conference start at 4pm and go until 8-9 pm. This past year was my first year as PTO President and when it was time for the fall conference, I thought it would be nice to have it catered by our one & only restuarant in our small town- the food was delicious and inexpensive for 30 teachers and it was no work to anyone. Boy did I hear about it later-the teachers appreciated it, but the parents were so hurt that I didnt ask them to do it. In the Spring, I sent out an email in search of parent chefs to prepare for the two nights of conferences and I was blown away by the response-they banded together and had an Italian theme night and a Mexican them night- there was so much food and the teachers raved- so much for a good idea- now its who can top this!!!
I guess it all depends on your "eaters" and cooks-
Sue

We feed our teachers often--probably around 7 times during the year. Sometimes it's full meals, and sometimes it's just baked goods for breakfast snacks. I have a great list of volunteers who are willing to cook, and I just send out a request for whatever items will be needed for whatever is coming up. We don't reimburse people for the food, although I do try to get enough volunteers that each is responsible for only 1 dish to serve 8-10 people max.

Yesterday, for instance, we had the back-to-school lunch, which was a salad buffet. We had 7 different salads, rolls, cheese & crackers, and 5 desserts. The PTO pays for paper plates, napkins, plastic cutlery, instant tea mix. We've also done Italian, Mexican, soups, and stuffed potatoes.

Our parents seem to love doing this--many specifically comment that their jobs make it difficult to volunteer during the school day, but they can prepare food and drop it by my house the night before an event--and the teachers definitely love the results. We're talking about compiling a PTO cookbook from the recipes used during the year for our Teacher-Staff Appreciation Week gift.

We don't reimburse unless they ask us to. Usually, it's just a volunteer thing. The PTO will usually buy the big items like meat, but rely on parents to help with the extras. We haven't had anyone ask us to repay them so far! Usually the cost is minimal. And the parents feel like they helped.

We reimburse whoever makes the food as it is budgeted for.