Congratulations to all participating schools who worked so hard and showed such enthusiasm. The winning school with an amazing pounds per student ratio of 8.17 is Randolph Elementary. Randolph families collected 114 bags of shoes. The team of 30+ students made posters, spoke to each class, filled and labeled the bags, and helped us load every bag into our vehicles.

I would like to give special recognition to the students at Garfield who personally called me to request pickups (I think I'm going to save those voicemails for a long time,) the students at Riley who gave up their playground time to fill bags, and the PTA at Hoover who took advantage of their Walk-a-thon to collect twenty bags-worth of shoes before any other school had collected even one.

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this shoe drive. You have made it more successful than anyone in our club could have hoped. Working with the parents, staff and students has been truly enjoyable.

Kathi Withun

The Livonia PTSA Council would like to congratulate Randolph Elementary for winning the contest and we'd like to thank all of our participating schools. You did a fantastic job and we are so proud of your hard work.

We would also like to thank the Livonia Kiwanis Early Risers Club for being so generous. We are so grateful to have such a wonderful partner in the community!

Here are the numbers:

• In 8 weeks, your elementary schools have collected 12,075 pairs of shoes, weighing in at 12,211 pounds. That's 6.1 tons of stuff not going into a landfill.
• Together, these 7 schools have 3,289 students. So on average, the family of each student donated 3.71 pairs of shoes.
  
• At $0.40/pound, you have raised $4,884.40 for our club to split between the elimination of maternal/neonatal tetanus and Michigan children's hospital programs.
• Final LPS numbers are not in yet because one of the high schools seems to have misplaced some of their bags. With what we have collected to date from them, LPS as a whole has donated 12,476 pairs of shoes at 12,623 pounds.
• That's $5,049.20.
• When we started this project, we had 100 bags to work with. I gave each of your schools 10 bags, a couple of boxes and some rubber bands. There are two schools who were each able to fill more than 100 bags, together earning more than $2,300.

The Kiwanis Club of Livonia Early Risers was chartered in 1981. Two of our charter members are still active today. Our club's focus, and the focus of our 600,000 members worldwide, is changing the world by serving children, one child and one community at a time. If you or someone you know would like to help us make a difference in the lives of children, here and around the world, please send us an email. It's really a lot of fun!

Please join us in thanking our Council Reflections chairs - Cyndi Pierzynski and Ny Derry! Thanks to their hard work, Livonia PTSA Council accepted over 120 entries in this years Reflections competition (they are projecting a total of 150 entries!) That's fantastic news!

We would also like to thank each PTA Reflections chairperson. These programs can't happen without your hard work and encouragement. Enjoy the upcoming break and we look forward to celebrating our Reflections Awards with you as soon as we get back:

Thursday January 7
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Stevenson High School

Did you miss our last workshop? We had a fantastic presentation by the staff of the Patriot Inn. Chef Andy showed us some easy and exciting ways to shake up Thanksgiving side dishes. Did we mention there were delicious samples? Teacher Chris Bednarczyk explained how PTA units can hire the Patriot Inn to cater functions too. If you'd like information, please email Ms. B at cbednarc@livoniapublicschools.org

Joy Ellis won the Thanksgiving dinner prepared by the Patriot Inn students that Council raffled. She writes "It was delicious and much appreciated."
Make sure to write down March 16 for our next Workshop!
Thanks again to the Patriot Inn!

Due to changes in the building renovation schedule, we are no longer able to hold the YMAD Celebration at Stevenson on April 19th.

The 2016 YMAD Celebration will instead be held at Churchill High School on April 26th. Please pass this information on to your student participants.

News from the National PTA:

In partnership with the Learning First Alliance, the Get It Right: Common Sense on the Common Core campaign shares success stories and resources with educators, parents and community leaders across the country to help them better understand and implement the Common Core State Standards in their local schools.

National PTA launched its "Get it Right" campaign in June 2015 at its annual convention in Charlotte, NC, with a training for PTA leaders from 12 states. PTA leaders then went back to their states and completed work centered on educating parents on standards, assessments and advocacy skills needed to impact the successful implementation of college and career ready standards completing over 70 trainings.

The campaign was a great success! A special thank you goes to Johanna Bobenhouse, Hoang Bui, Janice Crutchfield, Deborah Demery, Nicole Fentem, Frances Frost, Maryalice Foisy, Sherry Holderith, Linda Kearschner, Jennifer Martinez, Brian Minsker, Cheryl Phipps, Sheila Ragland, Tandra Rutledge and LeAnn Wood.

We thank them for dedicating their time to this important work, making a difference in their states, and furthering PTA's mission of making every child's potential a reality.

It's back for a second year! The Patriot Inn is inviting PTA officers for an afternoon of cookie baking right before the holidays! There is no cost to participate and this is first come, first served - so sign up now. Bakers just need to show up ready to bake. The Patriot Inn students will do all of the prep work for you! Each baker will leave with several dozen tasty cookies ready to eat. Sign up here:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f48a4af2cab9-christmas

For more information about the Michigan PTA, click here:

www.michiganpta.org

For more information about the National PTA, click here:

www.pta.org