PTSO Fun Run
Greenfield Elementary 2019-2020
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Dear Greenfield Family,
I am excited to announce that this coming Monday we will be kicking off our annual fun run fundraiser and we are counting on your support, generosity and enthusiasm to make it a success. This year’s theme is Stampede in the Swamp, and our halls are already decorated with various animals (including Highland Hawks and Greenfield Grizzlies) cheering on some energetic Gators. Each classroom is adopting an animal mascot-- real or imaginary-- and creating a banner and a cheer to help build their running spirit. In addition, because the color run theme was so popular with the students over the last two years, we will again be spraying anyone who wants it with various colors as they make their way through the course.
As many families know, in past years we used a fun run company to help us organize and execute this major fundraiser. However, like most fundraising companies, whether they specialize in fun runs, butter braids or candles, the company was a for-profit business, and this meant that we had to turn over almost half of our proceeds to this corporation. We heard many of your voices-- you were uncomfortable with sharing so much money with an outside organization and you wanted it all to stay at Greenfield. We listened and we agreed!
For the fifth year in a row, our PTSO has taken on the enormous-- and at times quite intimidating-- task of planning our own fun run fundraiser. Our faithful PTSO has recruited an army of volunteers for everything from managing accounting software to creating the perfect mixture for our color spray solution that the students will be able to run through on the track. (For those wondering, we determined that the safest, best working formula is simply water and food coloring like you’d buy from the grocery store, rather than some powder formulas that can be messy and potentially allergenic.) Other parents have spent hours upon hours creating decorations for our halls to spread enthusiasm across the whole school. There are countless others working behind the scenes because our school community is so important to them. Speaking on behalf of the faculty and staff of Greenfield Elementary, we are honored and humbled by such service and support. If you are still interested in volunteering, please follow link -- we’d love to have you!
Monday afternoon, our students will attend the kick-off rally, and will hear about the prizes and incentives they can earn for bringing in donations. They range from individual prizes to class incentives like a pajama day or a movie party in the gym, silly school incentives like watching their teachers take part in some fun gameshow style fun or actually getting to pie a teacher in the face, all the way up to a game truck lunch with the principal for the top students in each grade level. Rydables, the big plush animals that you may have seen people riding around the mall on, will also be incorporated in a fun way. Our hope is to motivate the students to ask you and others close to you to help our school continue to be the outstanding place it has long been.
This year again, we are underscoring this fun atmosphere by also emphasizing the opportunity for community service in this run. Much like many of the 5k/10k races and marathons that we often participate in, we are raising money for a cause, not just a prize. We want students to know that their participation in this cause makes a difference in our school community and to experience the joy that comes with it. We know how service-minded our community is and we have seen our students thrive in knowing that they are making an impact.
Over the last years, PTSO has helped us revolutionize the technology at Greenfield. Chromebooks and iPads have become a regular part of instruction in our classrooms and we are at a nearly 1:1 ratio of students to devices across the campus and the impact has been extremely positive. PTSO has sponsored bringing STEM project based learning modules to our campus, and has purchased the projectors that are in every classroom on our campus. We have also been able to purchase supplementary reading programs to continue to help build fluent readers in all grade levels. These are items that impact teaching and learning every single day, and we are so fortunate to have this support. What is a luxury in many schools has become part of the standard of excellence that we are proud to offer your children in our classrooms.This year, PTSO’s focus is enhancing our playground and we cannot wait to see what we have in store. Having this partnership with our parents is truly one of the biggest reasons that Greenfield is the phenomenal place that it is.
One hundred percent of the money brought in by this fundraiser will stay at Greenfield Elementary! We appreciate deeply the support of PTSO and all of our families as we continue to grow and innovate in our instruction and practice. Having this partnership with our parents is truly one of the biggest reasons that Greenfield is the phenomenal place that it is.
Please follow this link to donate, and please encourage family and community members to do the same! Donations can be made online through midnight Sunday, March 8th, and the run itself will take place on Friday, March 6th (See the schedule sent home this week for your child’s run time-- we know lots of you like to come experience the action first hand!). We are encouraging 100% participation, and so we have included prizes for $5 donations this year as well. If each student raised an average of about $35, we would easily reach our goals. We know that not every family is able to do this, but we also know that the generosity and support of the Greenfield community is unparalleled.
We very much appreciate our parent community, and I am excited to see the impact of what we can accomplish together!
With Sincere Gratitude,
Mary Longnion
Principal
Greenfield Elementary School