Sheets were sent home; the response was zero. Last year I heard the picnic was scrapped because of this. This year's chair wanted to make sure her daughter and classmates had it, but she's hitting a wall of ignorance/apathy/ I don't know what.
The only thing left to try is to reach out directly to particular parents. But as I mentioned, school policy is making that hard too. I have a vested interest in this for two reasons: this lady has been helpful with other events and we don't want her to burn out and walk away; next year my child will be a 4th grader and I'd like to be prepared to face the situation then.
Can you send home flyers with the kids asking parents for their help? It's frustrating when no one is willing to help! Can you use the kids to help set up, serve, etc?
cant you distribute, via the teacher, a note to each child home in their folder, to every parent in the class, asking for help or whatever is needed, and include your contact details?
our school also has a school directory that lists email addresses of parents that voluntarily put their contact details there; most things are done via email at our school, even though this method excludes about 50% of parents/kids from the info being distributed/or solicitations for help requested.
Does your group have an organized way of getting in touch with and asking for any help on events from the wolunteer room moms/class moms and dads?
Our elementary school office has told us that they can not give out any parent phone numbers to the committee chair of the pizza night that raises money for the 4th grade picnic and 5th grade graduation activities. That makes it awfully hard to get parents to pitch in. We have very low volunteer participation at the school generally, and no 4th grade parents have attended our Home & School Club meetings this year. The poor parent who agreed to do chair the event is understandably frustrated and feeling dumped on.
How do you get the contact info you need to recruit helpers? If your school doesn't give it out, what else can you do?
