Box Tops for Education

Hi Carrie

This is my second year as the box top queen. THe Ptu offered the classroom with submitting the most boxtops a pizza party. I have had when you submit a form you get an entry for a @25. visa gift card.I pull the winner from the entries.

Cathy

I took over the program this year. No one was really pushing it before. My school gives me a lot of freedom. For the first quarter, we are letting the teachers keep the money their classroom earns to spend on needed items for their class ( a lot are buying indoor recess items). It was a huge success. The teachers talked about box tops to their classes and put info about it in their newsletters. We will likely earn more this quarter than the entire year last year.

Next quarter I will be doing drawings. One gift basket of halloween stuff to be given the week before halloween and a holiday basket for right before break. Will do one entry for every 10 brought in. Will probably do a pizza party for the winning class too.

I have found a lot of great ideas on here too! Hoping to do something fun/funny for the kids. Will bring up at the next PTO to see if teachers will be willing to have their hair spray painted in school colors for a day if their class meets a certain goal! It is a fairly cheap incentive that the kids would love! Good luck!

When I started collection sheets, I created my own to  have plently of space for all sized box tops.. we went from $400 to $1500 the 1st year. The students loved the themed sheets. Ice cream sundae to win an ice cream party, pizza to win a pizza party, hearts for valentines day to win a breakfast party, popsicles for a 100 challenge every class that brings in 100 box tops receives popsicles. The ideas are endless. We average now 3200.00 a year! I'm running a ice cream party challenge now and in 2 days collected 5000 box tops! Good Luck and welcome to the box tops family. 

Here's my advice.

1.  If you're only having 2 contests a year, shift them from October and March.  Make them a month earlier.  The cut off for the check printing is going to be November 1 and March 1, so you're not giving yourself enough time to get them in on the check.  That means that the ones you collect in October won't appear until your April check (unless you REALLY hustle to have them in postmarked November 1) and your March ones won't appear until your next December check in 2012!

2.  Make a simple spread sheet and track how much you bring in from different methods.  For example, I can tell you that we've brought in $73 last year just by sticking a box in the daycare center on our campus.  We brought in $50 through our "Box Tops Bucks" (sheets with spaces for 10 box tops, 3 bucks per page, they can fill the whole page or just a buck at a time).  That tells me that it is worth it to me to print some Box Tops Bucks each year and pass them out.  If we'd only gotten $5 off the Box Tops Bucks, I probably wouldn't bother with them this year.  Have a column for each contest and any different methods you use (saving over the summer, store bonus programs, etc.).

Tess

This is my third year as coordinator in a small elementary school. I make Bubble Gum Bouquets for each class that turns in an average of 10 boxtops per student each month.  At the end of the year, the class that has turned in the most boxtops overall will receive a candy bar bouquet.  They are really easy to make and are not that expensive.  I started these at the end of the school year last year and it really improved my collections. This has been working great so far this year.  We have 18 classrooms in our elementary and 11 have earned the bouquets so far this month.  We have an assembly each morning in the gym and the bouquets are presented on a Monday or Wednesday.  The kids love them!

Hello

can describe these bubble gum bouquets to me? I love this idea and would love to corporate this at our school. Is there a picture I can see somewhere.

Thank You

I would love to hear about the bubble bouquets also. Do you have a picture of them?

Laurie