School 1 Students Net $800 Worth of ‘Box Tops for Education’

Students at earned about $800 for their school’s PTA this year simply by clipping coupons and, with the help of family members, shopping online.

Organized by first-time volunteer Stefanie Stuart, the parent of a first-grader at School No. 1, the school participated in the Box Tops for Education program once again.

The organization provides cash to schools based on the number of “Box Tops” coupons clipped from “hundreds of participating products” or from shopping online.

Stuart, who is a member of the PTA but not of its executive committee, volunteered to help out with the program this year and said she was “happy to do it.”

“We have a competition between the classes,” Stuart said. “Last year, the winning class that gathered the most for the first collection date won a pizza party. And this year the cutoff was March 1, so they’re getting an ice cream party on Wednesday.”

The goal, she said, was to collect $1,000 for the year; the two cutoff dates are in the fall and early spring.

“We collected just shy of $500 in the first round, and we collected just over $300 in the second round,” Stuart said. “So we made it to about $800.”

For the fall collection, the class that collected the most box tops and therefore won a pizza party was Ms. Pillari’s fifth grade class.

“I have the best class in the whole wide world,” Pillari said proudly as her class assembled for a group photo.

For the March 1 cutoff date, the winners of the ice cream party were the second-graders in Mrs. Green’s class.

“That’s what’s great about it is it’s not skill-based, so pretty much every single grade from Kindergarten to sixth grade has an equal opportunity to win,” Stuart said. “The feedback that I’ve gotten has been pretty positive. I think that the kids have gotten really into it, and I’ve seen it with my kid’s classmates; they are pretty excited.”

She said the funds raised from the program go directly to the school’s PTA, which can then use the money for various projects and assemblies they conduct throughout the year.

In her first year as volunteer coordinator, Stuart said she was happy with how things turned out and hopes to earn even more for the school in the future.

“We have a couple of years to go,” she said. “So I’m hoping that the more awareness we build and the more enthusiasm and momentum we build, then maybe we can start earmarking [the funds] for a bigger project.”

She also encouraged grandparents and other family members to get involved, which they can do simply by shopping online throughout the year.

“You can actually earn box tops online, and you can still collect them over the course of the year,” Stuart said. “We have two submission deadlines per academic year, but ideally, you should be collecting them on an ongoing basis.”

She added that people can earn box tops for their chosen school from such high-profile online retailers as Home Depot, Crate and Barrel, Barnes and Noble and others.

“These are places that people go to anyway,” Stuart said. “So you can just automatically make your money work a little bit better for you.”

To participate in the program, visit the Box Tops for Education website, enter your zip code and select your child’s school from the list.