Ours is a line item "Volunteer Appreciation and Retention", so no one thinks a 'Presidents Expense' is the only person whom can be reimbursed, that way board and committee memebers know they too can 'thank' volunteers.

Yes, thats where it should come from - President's Expenses...we just never had a line item for that and all last year I was just out of pocketing everything...I've wised up [img]smile.gif[/img] Thanks for your reply!

Cherry,
If it helps them keep their teeth, my thank you notes and certificates come out of my supplies and paper goods budget or, if there are a lot of volunteers, like for our carnival, I would purchase these things out of the carnival budget.

Wow! Im so glad I found this topic. This is my 2nd year as PTO President. The first year I was certainly intimidated and did everything low key and just followed my predecessors lead. Well, not this year! I had so many ideas by the end of the year and so many ways I wanted to thank and acknowledge my volunteers! Ok, long post short..I was "told" by a few people that alot of the extras I wanted to do would not be covered under any line item in our budget. Guess what? At this years budget meeting before school started I said we need to add in a new line item..President's Expense. I thought they were going to drop their teeth! What I wanted to be included in this line item was simply reimbursement for certificates, supplies, small thank you gifts,things like this. We have an end of the year PTO dinner for the Executive Board (20 women) and we all pay for it ourselves. Our principal usually makes a donation and it takes care of dessert for everyone and the rest just goes towards the bill. This year we are planning either a PTO volunteer luncheon or volunteer social for all of the volunteers who help throughout the year. If we have hospitality money left we could use that for that, but I cant even imagine spending money we earned on anything other than a school related program. But I do agree...a thank you goes a long way!

I received a few written thank-you's last year, and believe me, I have kept them all. Some from teachers that I NEVER thought even noticed what I've been doing. I can take myself out to dinner. I can't write such a thank-you to myself.

I'd shy away from spending money on a select group. Singling out a few is a great way to re-inforce the old ideas amd pet peeves that PTA/O's can be a cliquey thing. The idea of a volunteer lunch at the end of year is a fair way to go. So, long as someone keeps track of all those names all year long.

I was just cleaning up my PTO desk (ok, it's a pile that takes up most of the house including the desk) and found some thank you letters I received from a 2nd grade class (they were learning how to write letters) after doing something special for the school. Each child had a lined piece of paper (like blank stationary) and they wrote the letter and then drew in pictures around the border to personalize it. I remember putting it at the bottom of my stack so I would quit looking at them and crying. These are the types of things that we should feel so blessed to receive, not an expensive dinner that means we will have to work that much harder next year to raise that money to pay for a dinner all over again. It almost seems moot to work so hard in the first place if it is just going to feed someone who probably wouldn't starve without that meal. Ok, I'm off my soapbox.