We do have a Sunshine Committee, but it doesn't serve the parents or kids, only the school staff members.
We budget about $250 per year, and have never used it all. The way that we've set it up is that we will purchase a gift or gift card with a $50 value (the amount never changes, to avoid discriminating against anyone) for any staff member who is retiring, has a death in their immediate family or is hospitalized. It doesn't apply to parents or students at all.
Instead, we provide the school with a scholarship fund of $200 (managed by the guidance counselor) to cover school supplies, field trip costs, etc. for students whose families need financial assistance. We provide scholarships for PTA dues to any family who needs it as well. Beyond that, if the guidance counselor becomes aware of a family who needs extra financial assistance then she presents that information to the board and if we choose to help it is taken out of the President's Discretionary Fund in order to avoid any violation of privacy by presenting it to the membership for a vote. Or at least that's the theory. In practice it's never actually been done since it's never been requested.
In addition to all of this, we have been known to informally activate the phone tree as concerned parents, not as PTA members, if we become aware of a family who has suffered a death, car accident, major illness, inability to provide their kids with clothing, holiday gifts, etc. This usually happens when the classroom parent becomes aware of a problem in their classroom and uses the phone tree to contact other classroom parents to see if anyone is in a position to help. But the PTA never pays for this and we don't advertise it in our newsletter or at our meetings. We simply make it clear that the classroom parents are permitted to use the PTA phone tree for this purpose.
During the holidays the PTA also puts up a giving tree with another school's needy students on it, and that school puts one up with our needy students. That way we stand a better chance of keeping anyone from getting embarrassed. The list of families who need to be assisted is coordinated through the school counselors, and the only thing we do is deliver the gifts to the other school's Parent Group and get the gifts for our families back to our guidance counselor's office.
We have discussed using the Sunshine Committee to help our school families, but have decided against it because there's no way to be sure that we would hear about everyone's special circumstances. We decided that it would be better to focus solely on assisting with actual financial need when the guidance counselor is unable to locate a community resource that can assist the family than to attempt to provide flowers, meals, etc. for only the families whose circumstances we've heard about.
We do have one exception to this that is in our policies and procedures manuals. If we were ever to lose a student due to an accident, major illness, etc., we would use the Sunshine Committee funds to purchase flowers for the funeral services (or make a charitable donation if that is what the family has requested in lieu of flowers) and to purchase some sort of tree or shrub for the kids to plant at the school in that student's honor, with a plaque purchased by us identifying who the tree has been planted in memory of. Luckily this has never happened to us, and hopefully we'll never need to use it. I think the only reason that it even made it into our policies is because we considered the possibility when the district added a policy regarding the way that student deaths were to be handled by the school and the district.
The biggest thing to remember about establishing a Sunshine Committee, particularly one that is meant to include students' families is that doing this can be considered as divisive as it can be uniting, especially if someone who doesn't want assistance gets it or if someone who would appreciate it doesn't get it either because the money runs out or no one hears about the events when they happen. For us going through the guidance office provided us with a measure of protection from divisiveness since we never actually know the name of the family we are helping, and we have no part in determining who needs or deserves assistance. The most info we ever get is what type of help is needed or the ages and genders of the families' children for the Giving Tree. I think it also helps that our GC is a former President of our PTA and helped write these policies, so we know she has no problem following through with her side of things. If we ever get a different counselor we may discover problems with this system that we've never seen before. And no matter who your committee is or isn't authorized to assist, there should always be a set amount in your guidelines that isn't allowed to be deviated from over or under to avoid any hurt feelings on that front.
I don't know if any of that actually helps you or not, but maybe there's something in all of my rambling that you can use.
