I wanted to say THANK YOU!!! To all of you that post here and share your ideas. Last year was a struggle for us, 2 officers and a few faithful volunteers doing everything. This year looked bleak. I had 3 officers that were resigning before we ever got started. One has stayed (thank God) she is a wonderful lady, was one of the faithful from last year, and treasurer this year. The other 2 positions were filled when 2 ladies called her then me and wanted to be involved. They came as an answered prayer. They took over so many things that I was trying to complete and running out of time on. Now we have another family that has moved into the area. This family was big in PTA. We feel that they will be a great asset to us. We just love the new ideas and are all amazed at the differences in how their school was and ours is. We have used several ideas from this board. We are doing a theme this year. Our bee holding a bunch of balloons and COME SOAR WITH US!!! We have cut out the bee and a balloon for each teacher and will add the students name for that class when the family joins PTO as a paid ($3.00) voting member, class with the most per grade level gets $$$ and a party. We did the name tags from paint paddles with balloons on them added those to the survival kits (instead of 2 aspirin take when all else fails, we substituted "A Balloon for when you need to Blow Up" these were a BIG hit. We have designed T-shirts with this theme also. The T-shirts we are not doing as a fundraiser but, are trying to get all the students one for field trips as the teachers will not be allowed to use name tags for the children for safety reasons. The logo is on the back with the bee and school name plus number, so that our children can be identified easy without letting others know who they are.
We hear nothing but good about our PTO now. What we accomplished last year and are already doing this year. That is a nice change from last year where all we heard was well in the past PTO this and that........ all negative. I have told everyone that will listen about this site. The ideas that have been shared and what other schools are doing. Several have said they have visited it and how much they liked it. They liked the idea that was Posted about all of the county schools PTO's getting together. Our elementary grades (3-5) as of right now will not have a PTO, because people are burnt out and no one will volunteer. It's so wonderful at our primary (pre-K-2nd) several of the parents at Meet and Greet actually came and said "I want to do something." Sorry to go on but, I am on Top of the World right now lol. We signed up 66 in 2 hours at Meet and Greet, last year we had 100 voting members for the whole year, not many showed for things though. I do Thank EVERYONE here. I would also like to tell you that what your doing being involved in your child's school is wonderful.......... I have been told that I am one of a breed of few that are willing to get involved and push to see things done. It's nice to know I share this special breed with such wonderful, caring people as yourselves. Keep up the great work that you do. My personal advice, especially to new people is to pray a lot, read this forum and ask, so many here are willing to share ideas and help. Things are happening here at our school that I am proud to be a part of, a lot of it is thanks to this forum, and parents that are starting to get the message through a lot of hard work, tears and prayers that they are needed. I'll hush now lol. Just had to share the great news. Thanks again.
Donna
[ 09-01-2002: Message edited by: PTOmomof5 ]</p>
