After reading all of this information and talking with our principal. Our PTO decide to do a coin drive also.

Serendipity-Did you send out some kind of letter to the students and parents? If you did, how did you word it. If you have it available, I would love a copy of it or some suggestions. My email is bevshorespto at cs.com

This board is just a wealth of information! Thanks to everyone!

I'm excited because our principal called me back today and is excited about organizing a fund drive for the tsunami victims. He is going to call on the school's chaplain to "spearhead" it which is A-OK with me. I just want to get it MOVING, which it seems is what my job description is! I got good ideas from all of you--I just looked at a website charitywatch.org (did someone else mention that?) that gives A & B ratings to charities working in SE Asia--very informative.
Shelly

In NJ and the surrounding states we have Commerce Banks. They have a coin machine that you can drop all your coins in and it prints out a reciept with the total of the coins. Then the teller will give you the cash for the amount of the reciept. It costs you nothing and you do not need to have an account with them in order to use the coin machine.

Maybe if you ask around you can find a bank by you that does the same thing. It certainly beats having to count and roll all of those coins!

Good Luck! I hope you raise a ton of money!!!

Serendipidy,

Thanks for the tips...the Principal is behind the effort. She even suggested that the Student Leadership could assist with the effort. I thought that I would ask a local bank if they could offer penny rolls, etc. I'll let the board know how it goes.

The other stuff: Thanks goodness the wack-ohs are few and far between!

Thank you for all your input. We decided to go with giving our donation to the United States Fund for Unicef which is listed as a good chairty to give to on all those sites. It was so hard to decide who to give to, but we decided to go with them as we wanted a charity where children are the prime focus.

I think all the media coverage and all these websites are so awesome in making sure your money goes to a good charity.

To Grognd...We have not recieved any objections and I recieved quite a few emails from parents who were very happy that we were doing this. The teachers are more then supportive and a handful of them asked us how they could help us in anyway.
Letting kids drop coins in a can should not take away from instructional time. They should just do it first thing in the AM before they get in their seats. How long does it really take to throw some coins in a can. We also have a big container that is placed in the lunch room and the kids can put their change from lunch in it as well.

I am getting hints of reluctance to join in as a community from some fellow demos because Pres. Bush has asked for all Americans to help. Shameful!

Let me get this straight...Are you saing that people who are anti Bush don't want to help because he asked for people to help????? That is not only shameful. It is pathetic and childish and this disaster and donating money has nothing to do with President Bush and everything to do with Human Beings helping each other in a time of need. I would have absolutely no patience for someone who could say such a thing to me. I would tell them to grow up, seek counseling, & get a grip!

Did you get any objections to impact on "instructional time" for your effort? We are thinking of coordinating a "Pennies for the Kids of SE Asia" campaign. Something simple like a flyer, some sort of container in each classroom, and a one week time limit.

Unbelievably, I am getting hints of reluctance to join in as a community from some fellow demos because Pres. Bush has asked for all Americans to help. Shameful!

Any other ideas on how to run this?