With a little extra planning this holiday season, your gifts to family and friends can also be a gift to Southborough schools.
A fundraising program offered by the Southborough Organization for Schools lets you purchase gift cards for national retailers to give as gifts or to use for your own holiday shopping. You purchase the cards at face value and SOS receives a cut of anywhere from 2-15% of the value of the card. Use a gift card purchased through the fundraiser just like you would a gift card purchased directly through the store.
The program is run through the Great Lakes Scrip Center. GLSC purchases a large number of gift cards at a discount from more than 600 retailers. They then resell the discounted gift cards to non-profit organizations like SOS who get to keep a portion of the revenue. Last year SOS made nearly $3,000 (80% of their fundraising effort) through the scrip program. For more on how the program works, visit the GLSC website.
You can purchase gift cards for major retailers like Barnes & Noble, Dunkin Donuts, and the Gap, but you have to place your order with SOS by Friday, December 5. Follow the link for the gift card order form (MS Word document). View a complete list of participating retailers alphabetically or by category.
If you have a child who is a student at Finn, Woodward, Neary, or Trottier, you can drop the order form off at the school’s office and the gift cards will be sent home with your child when they arrive. If you don’t have a child in the school system, I’m sure SOS would be happy to accomodate your order. Try contacting one of the following SOS members: Laura Garand (email), Janice Hatton (email), or Christina Sweeney (email).
