Fresh & Easy Shop for Schools Program

Looking for a way to help out your school? Fresh & Easy shopping centers have a Shop for Schools Program. During designated times of the year Fresh & Easy will donate $1 to a participating school for every $20 that you spend in their store.
Right now until December 31st, for every reciept over $20 that you give to one of the schools participating in their program they will give the school $1. The good thing is that it is for every $20 you spend so say for example your reciept is for $40 the school gets $2. So you don't have to shop in $20 increments.  Not sure what schools are participating? Well just click here to check out the list of schools that are currantly participating.
Don't see your school? Well unfortunely the registration for this year ended on October the 1st. However don't let that get you down.  Go to your school and let them know about the program. Contact Fresh & Easy and see when the next program is scheduled to start. That way your school can get prepared for the next time.  Don't have a kid in a local school that's participating? That's ok, still save your receipts and just stop in the office at one of the schools that are participating and drop them off, trust me the school will appreciate it!
Don't want to stop and drop off a receipt but you still shop at your local Fresh & Easy? Fresh & Easy also will be having Shop for Schools Shopping Nights for the schools that are participating in the Shop for Schools program.  Just check with your school for what is the date for their shopping night, shop at Fresh & Easy between 4pm and 8pm on that night, and 5% of the total sales from that time go to school. No need to worry about going to a school at all. 

***Are you a local store or business that is having school nights? or programs to benifit local schools? Let me know I will be happy to post about it. Just email me at aimeelavalle@gmail.com. ***

Redu

So Bing, in colaboration with other companies, has decided to continue its efforts in assisting education by starting the website REDU.

"REDU stands for rethinking, reforming and rebuilding US education. It is a movement designed to expand and encourage the national conversation around education reform by providing information and resources to learn, a community platform to connect, and tools and initiatives to act." (This is basically a direct quote from its "about REDU" section on its home page)
It provides links to various articles regarding education, and things people can do to help out schools and classrooms. It also provides ways for teachers and parents to interact and is linked to Donorschoose.org to help donate to schools nationwide. I think this is one more great example of a company taking initiative to help out our schools and should be applauded. Go check it out, see what it's about. Anything that helps raise attention to the national problem of underfunding in school classrooms is definitly a good thing.

"Our School Needs" contest winners:

I jsut wanted to give everybody an update on who the winners of the Bing "Our School Needs" contest were.

The $100,000 grand prize winner is:
Greenfield Hebrew Academy (Atlanta, GA)- whose quest for a new roof may soon be fulfilled so students will no longer have to avoid puddles in the hallways when it rains!


The three first-prize winners, who will recieve $50,000 are:

K-6: Patriot Elementary School (Fort Carson, CO) - students from this military post need cameras and technical resources to keep in touch with loved ones overseas.

7-9: M.S. 158 Marie Curie School (Bayside, NY) - this school hopes to bring back basic school supplies and after-school programs lost in severe budget cuts.

10-12: Oakland International High School (Oakland, CA) - in a school where over 25 different languages are spoken, teachers want musical instruments, art supplies and technological equipment to bring lesson plans to life.


The winner of the Ryan's Pick $25000 prize is:
James Singleton Chtr School (New Orleans, LA) -This school is trying to form a marching band and music program, and need the funds to help supplie musical instruments, etc to the students.

Also Bing was so impressed by the finalists that they decided to award $5000 to each finalist that did not recieve a grand prize, first place prize or Ryan's pick prize.

Feel free to go check out all the schools that entered and their programs at:
www.Bing.com/OurSchoolNeeds

AND thanks to the donation codes that Bing awarded to the first 30000 voters each day, over 6600 projects and 169000 students have benifited on DonorsChoose.org.
If you still have a  code be sure to redeem it before November 30th:

www.DonorsChoose.org/OurSchoolNeeds

Looking for a way to earn money for your school?

To PTA/Teachers/People who handle fund raisers, etc:
Burger King in Calimesa California, is looking for schools/school groups that would be interested in partnering with them to hold a School Benefit Night. School benefit nights are a fun and reletively easy way to earn money for your school.  The school contacts the restaurant, set a date, and then spread the word. 
A percent of that nights sales goes to the school. 
Also the night is planned around your school.  Teachers are welcome to come out that night and "help out". Thus giving them a chance to get to know the parents in a non-school setting. Balloons and decorations in the schools colors, as well as other activities.
If you are associated with a school or school group in the Calimesa/Yucaipa area of California and are interested contact Alej Garcia at 951-255-0915.  Or just go into the Calimesa Burger King, located off the 10 exit, off Calimesa Blvd.  You can see the sign from the freeway.

This is for schools in the Calimesa/Yucaipa, California area, however the idea itself is a really good one. If your school isn't in the area of the Calimesa Burger King, why not go see if your local Burger Kings or other restaurants, ice cream shops, etc., are holding school nights.  In the past I know that the local Cold Stone Ice Cream store had hosted one, Pizza Hut does, and Dairy Queen as well.  Even if the store isn't a national chain or for that matter even if they don't have more than one location, that's ok. They still might be willing to host a school night, or some other form of promotion to help raise money for your school or school group.  Remember this benefits them too. They get basically free advertising and good public relations with the local community. If you have a school night or program coming up, let me know. I will gladly post the time and location to help spread the word. Just email me at aimeelavalle@gmail.com.

See's Candy & Jungle Beans Coffee Fundraiser!

O.k. for all my coffee and chocoholics out there, I've got a good one for you!  Sundance Elementary is having a fundraiser to help support it's PTA student programs. For example: Santa's Breakfast and Imagination Machiene.(the imagination machiene helps encourage creative writing)  They are selling See's Candies and Jungle Beans Coffee. Unfortunetly there is no link to purchase the See's Candies part of the fund raiser online. So if anyone is interested in anything from that part and lives in the Beaumont/Banning California area please email me at aimeelavalle@gmail.com and I will help get you in contact with someone from the school.(sorry to anyone farther away but I personally don't have the funds to ship anything.)
However the Jungle Beans Coffee portion of the fundraiser is available for ordering online. Simply go to http://www.fundraisingiseasy.com/.  In the upper part of the screen there is  ORDER COFFEE NOW, click on that link and it will take you to the different coffees you can choose from. Whenever you're ready to check out just enter the Sundance key code: SDE123 and 50% of these orders will also be donated to Sundance Elementary.

Be sure to check it out soon! The fundraiser ends November 15th.

Superstar Spotlight: Cheryl Adams!

This first Spotlight piece is on Cheryl Adams. She is a wonderful woman who happened to hear that the local middle school was having trouble with their costumes for the Christmas play. The trouble? They didn’t have any, and funds were fairly non-existent. Well Cheryl heard this and figured she definitely could do something to help. You see she owns a store, Classy Consignments.

 It is a charming consignment store. If you live in Beaumont or Banning perhaps you’ve seen it? It is on 6^th st. in Beaumont, across from the civic center and city hall. Well once a month Cheryl goes through her inventory and donates items that haven’t sold to charities in the area. Well of the main items that Cheryl takes in for sale at her store is clothing. Now while Cheryl knew that not all the clothing would be suited for A Christmas Carol, the play the students will be performing. She knew that there would definitely be items that could come in handy.

So in the spirit of wanting to help out the students she proposed an idea. If the theater teacher were to come down and help out while they were pulling this months items, then any clothing items that the teacher happened to see that would be useful for the play she could take, free. Yes FREE!

So this Sunday morning I found myself down amongst the racks at Classy Consignments, figuring two pairs of hands would be better than one. I had the pleasure of getting to know Cheryl and her assistant Monica as they worked and gave some of their own precious time to asking “What about this item?” or “How about this?” AND I got to meet Scooter. Cheryl’s adorable doggie! He was dressed up as a little devil for Halloween. At first he was camera shy, but he came around. He made rounds while we were working. Making sure everyone was ok and giving an encouraging tail wag as he trotted by.

I’m sure that having to look out for “helpers” who had no idea what they were doing, did not make the day go by faster. However both Cheryl and Monica were still helpful and entertaining. Along with the wonderfully useful items that were found, Cheryl even treated breakfast and lunch! A pleasant and unexpected bonus.

We found many modern pieces that could be converted to Victorian dress. Amongst the treasures were long velvet skirts, beautiful silky blouses and tops; even a wonderful wrist purse, the perfect accessory for a Victorian Christmas Caroler. While they are still in need of more costumes, this act of generosity definitely went a long way towards helping the students. So if you have a moment be sure to stop in and say thank you to Cheryl. She did not need to open her doors to complete strangers last Sunday, but she did. Be sure to also say thank you to Monica, who was extremely helpful and kept her eyes peeled for anything that might be useful. If you are really lucky, you might even get to meet Scooter.

So every once in a while I would like to acknowledge someone that has gone out of their way to help out a local school. If you know someone, and would like to have me interview them for a Spotlight email me at aimeelavalle@gmail.com