In hard times, schools profit from coupons
Every year, students, parents, and friends at Maynard's Green Meadow School scissor out hundreds of tiny pink 10-cent coupons from specially designated products and place them inside drop boxes stationed at the school's main office or at local businesses.
The effort may seem insignificant for an elementary school of 525 students, but since 2002, the school has raised $12,389 through the
Green Meadow is hardly the only school to take advantage of the corporate program, and others like it, at a time of lean local budgets. Officials say the programs provide the opportunity to contribute money to local schools by buying ordinary products, allowing people of all incomes to participate.
Newton resident Ruth Goldman, cochairwoman of the Bowen Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization, said Boxtops garners at most about $1,000 a year of the $20,000 to $30,000 that her group raises annually, with most of the funds generated through raffles and auction events. But, she said, it's still something a lot of families feel they can do, regardless of their socioeconomic bracket. The money from Boxtops goes to underwrite science, technology, and arts expenses, but not core operating items, like a teacher's salary, she added.
"All families can contribute to it, but it's not anything like the spring festival we hold every year," which raises about $8,000, said Goldman.
According to the Boxtops program website, Florence Sawyer School in Bolton has raised $8,735 since 2002; Weston's Woodland Elementary School has raked in $3,386; Davis Thayer Elementary School in Franklin has garnered $6,306; and Berlin Memorial Elementary School has brought in $4,557.
While the program is run by General Mills, the coupons are also on
Brian Peters, director of Boxtops for Education, said 1,540 schools across Massachusetts are enrolled in the program, and have raised a total of $6.25 million. The program started in California in 1996, and is limited to schools with students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Participation by parents has increased, said Peters, with the Massachusetts schools hauling in $917,000 last year, up 15 percent from the previous year. "We've seen it increase every year, and the trend is going up," he said.
At Green Meadow, principal Bernadette McLaughlin said Boxtops for Education is one way the school is coping with tight funding, as revenues ebb and pressures mount on local officials to rein in property taxes. The school also participates in a similar corporate promotional effort involving the Target chain of stores that raises about $700 a year, she said.
"We leave no stone unturned," said McLaughlin. "We try to tap as many resources as we can."
McLaughlin said Green Meadow's parent-teacher group has explored different options for raising money for the school. The shopping-based programs fit well with the organization's goals for fund-raising, she said.
"We've been looking at ways to fund things, so parents don't end up with a bunch of candy and stuff they don't even use," said McLaughlin. "This is stuff you are going to buy anyway."
Kari George, a principal's office aide at Woodland Elementary in Weston, said she originally promoted the use of Boxtops through the school newsletter. Woodland now recruits parents to oversee the Boxtops fund-raising, she said.
"I think there was just an awareness that this was free money that could come in and help the school," said George.
Carol Bringelson, principal of Tahanto Regional Middle/High School, in the Berlin-Boylston regional system, said the middle school doesn't actively push parents to send in Boxtop coupons. But the school still cashed in on $366 from Boxtops last year, funding that paid for a new set of environmental paper vacuums in one of the classrooms, she said.
"If you are dealing with a limited budget, that makes a big difference," said Bringelson. 