Right: If you love to grab yourself a coffee or treat from Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks, you can support town schools at the same time. (Photo posted to Flickr by by Roberto Garcia Fadon)
SOS (Southborough Organization for Schools) runs a bunch of fundraisers in the fall and through the year. Right now, families are selling items from candles to candy.
But they are also collecting in ways that don’t require you to really dip into your wallet.
Last year, I shared some. This year, there’s a new one (but you have to act quickly.)
Here are the three taking place right now:
Coffee for Kids
(The name of this fundraiser gives me visions of jittery kindergarteners. But don’t worry, the coffee itself isn’t actually for the kids.)
If you’re a coffee junkie or can’t resist a good donut/cake pop, this fundraiser’s for you. When you pre-purchase a gift card for Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks through the SOS, they get a little kickback.
What I love about using the gift cards is I can load them onto my smart phone apps. Both vendors offer great “perks” for regular users, including free drinks. And I don’t need a wallet to get my fix. The clerk just scans my phone.
The deadline for this fundraiser is this Friday, October 3rd. Click here for the pdf. You can send the form in with payment in backpacks of Finn or Woodward students.
(Don’t have one, drop it off at the school office or use your neighbor!)
If you have questions, email [contact info removed in 2021*]
Stop and Shop’s A+ program – Time to Renew!
- Participating schools – all Southborough K-8
- Simply click the link to sign up online. Register your S&S card and select up to 2 schools.
- This needs to be renewed each school year.
- Points are earned based on purchases linked to the card between September and mid-March. Points are used to determine funds that the store will contribute to the schools.
- (This does not take away from your personal gas point earnings.)
Box Tops for education:
- Neary is currently collecting for deadline of October 18th
- Cut the “Box Tops” off packages, place them in a baggy and send them in your child’s backpack.
- Other schools usually participate during the year. So, keep putting the “box tops” aside even after the 18th.
- Click here for more information on related products.
*Updated (1/26/21 8:25 am): I removed the old email address to protect the organizer’s information since it is no longer needed.
Thank you, thank you for making me aware of the Stop & Shop donation program. As a member of the 1st graduating sixth grade class out of the brand new Mary Finn school, a long time ago, they get my small donation every week. A little bit helps a lot.
Just wondering out loud here but is there a way to donate directly to SOS? Perhaps, every time we push to have a “bake sale” type of activity which probably pays SOS pennies on the dollar we could post information…even a website like PayPal where we could donate directly to SOS? For me, as a parent….I’d rather donate than buy wrapping paper I won’t use at a higher price than I would like to pay.
I am puzzled on the single prong approach to our SOS support requests. Why appeal to our better natures through an appeal to help our schools in order to allow some other company to scoop out 80-90% of what we would have donated?
SOS is a 501(c)3 – but I couldn’t find information on how to directly contribute. But I’m sure they do accept checks.
If you want to pursue, you can try following up directly. The website is: http://www.southboroughsos.com/
My friend lives in Wayland and was active in the PTA there. A few years ago the PTA did a survey of the parents and asked if they would like to keep doing fundraisers or would prefer to donate $100 (or whatever they could afford). Parents overwhelmingly choice the donation over fundraisers. I’d love to see a similar survey of our parents.
Honestly, we do not do the fall fundraiser. The items are overpriced and I hate to ask someone to pay $15 for an item they can get for half that at a local store. Instead I donate my time to the schools, attend the school fundraiser events, and give some money directly to SOS.
Dear Finn School Parent,
Thank you for your interest in supporting Southborough’s public schools. In addition to SOS, The Southborough Education Foundation (SEF) welcomes contributions to support the Southborough public schools and Algonquin Regional High School. Secure payments via PalPal can be made from SEF’s homepage (www.southboroughed.org).
SEF seeks to foster academic excellence in our public schools by awarding grants for innovative and creative programs. Over the past 14 years, SEF has distributed over $350,000 in grants, funded entirely by our parents and businesses through fundraisers like the Red Apple and the Annual Spelling Bee. Please check out the website for detailed information about the grants that have been funded. Thanks again for your interest.
Thanks for sharing the coffee for kids fundraiser! I agree though I personally would rather donate directly to SOS than have these fundraisers throughout the year.
That’s why the types of things listed here are great – they are making money for the school without you having to pay any more than you would have anyway.
Like the coffee one – you still pay exactly the same amount for your coffee or donut or whatever, but by buying the gift card the school gets some % of that – Dunkin or whoever just gets a few cents/$ less of your money.