Amazon Smile: If you shop on Amazon, be sure to select “Oxford Parent Teacher Organization, Inc,” as your Amazon Smile recipient. If you use the app, be sure to turn Amazon Smile “on” in the settings. It really adds up – we received a quarterly deposit from 4/1 – 6/30 of $92.96. If all parents did this, it would make a huge impact, so share with friends and family as well!
Box Tops: Participation has come to an almost standstill since it went digital, no matter how much we advertise it. In July, 16 people supported the PTO, in August it was 12 and same for September currently. If anyone has any creative ideas as to how we get people involved, please let Melissa DiPaola know.
Sponsorships: We’re working toward asking community businesses and interested individuals to sponsor the PTO through direct, tax deductible, donations. If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in having your business sponsor the PTO, please let me know. We would also need help approaching local businesses, so if you have a personal connection with anyone, touch base with me please.
Clothing/Shred Drive: Shred Drive will be Saturday, 10/16 from 9am-12pm at Newtown Savings Bank, Quarry Walk. NSB is sponsoring a shred truck for us, so this is a great opportunity to really make a profit. Flyers will be coming out shortly, but save those unwanted documents and spread the word. Clothing Drive details are being worked out for exact timing, but we will have a donation bin at the Central Office Gazebo hopefully starting in October – start cleaning out those closets!
Book Fair: An in person, in school, book fair is back – with a lot of restrictions. Week of 10/18. We will not be allowed to have nearly the same number of volunteers as we normally do, therefore we plan to limit the sale to 2 days in each school. We are working out logistics with Scholastic, and then will do so with the schools. The volunteers must be a small core group of people, wearing masks, and showing proof of vaccination – no more than 4-5 volunteers per school. We won’t be able to have volunteers stop in for an hour or so then leave. It will be a whole day commitment. We will push E-WALLET as the main form of currency, therefore cutting down on the amount of help the littlest shoppers need to checkout with cash/check. It will be an interesting experiment – but everyone agrees this is an important step forward to some more normal times in school and we need to make it happen. We’re going to need a lot of assistance from the schools to, the schedules will need to be set very early with clear and repeated communication to parents. The sale is normally 3 days long and we have to cut it to 2, so it will be interesting. More details and logistics will be forthcoming.
Membership is ongoing via our website. REMINDER: Anyone holding a board position must renew and pay their dues to hold a position (with the exception of the school representatives). If you haven’t renewed yet, please be sure to do so.
I think those are the main points for now. As always, if anyone has any questions, concerns or suggestions, feel free to let me know.
