Our PTO makes a $50 donation at Christmas who an individual or family who is sincerely down and out. Our principal comes up with three or four choices and the PTO decides on one. The donation is kept quiet, for privacy of the person or family receiving the donation. But we all feel good knowing that we were able to help them out.
i know that our PTO does charitable contributions also. our children love to do it too!! they do better at those than our fundraisers! we do relay for life (cancer foundation), our local food banks, and our local salvation army at christmas time. our student council sometimes organizes it with help of course and we match what they bring in.
I think it is a wonderful idea. Plus it sends a message to your students and parents that your PTO is a caring organization. If our PTO could ever raise enough money, I would love to be able to donate money to different charities throughout the school year. We did donate money last year to the RIF program (Reading is Fundamental) and it made us all feel really great. Good luck to you and best wishes for a great school year.
I have to put a plug in here for the "adopt a school" program. It is terrific for school children cause for 500 dollars you can "adopt" a classroom of your choosing and correspond with the group, mail things etc and establish a real relationship. If you're looking for a charity...hit their site at adoptaclassroom.com and consider one of the less fortunate schools posted...especially earmarked are Katrina struck classrooms. All information is updated and it is a part of the program that you receive updates from the teacher on her classroom, what was purchased (controlled via the program) and neat stories about the children. We adopted 5 Katrina classrooms last year and really enjoyed our relationship. These folks weren't buying high tech games for computer systems...they purchased things like pencils and pens because that was what was required for their classrooms. Certainly eyeopening for our children.
We have fundraisers for charity at our (private) school but it's not necessarily run by the PTO. For example, we do Jump Rope for Heart (benefits the American Heart Assoc) and we do the St Jude's Math-a-thon every year. All of this is organized by the school and not the PTO.
If the members of your group are in agreement with this, I think it is a good idea. Many nonprofits give some of their money to other groups. A lot of schools did it to help Katrina victims, too. And getting the students involved in a service project teaches wonderful values. Many high schools and even middle schools require service hours. We can always find someone worse off than ourselves to help.
