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Date: 2/16/2022
EAST LONGMEADOW – Mapleshade’s School Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) is hosting a calendar raffle fundraiser for the month of March. They began selling raffle tickets in February and are looking for donations from local businesses to fill the month with great gifts and prizes.
To participate, locals pay for a $10 raffle ticket. Then every day in March, the PTO will pull out a name and that person will win that day’s prizes. They will have themes for the days in March such as Sweet Sundays, Try Something Tuesday and Foodie Fridays.
PTO President Katie Reilly said, “We’ve done other fundraisers before, but this is our first calendar one. We have tried to be creative recently, given the circumstances, and we tried to think of something more local. We reached out to board members and PTO parents that have reached out to people they know in town and we got a lot of support.”
Mapleshade PTO is an organization that helps teachers and students by supporting and enhancing the learning that’s already happening at Mapleshade through enrichment programs, field trips or any outside-of-the-box ideas that would help students learn and grow. They try typically to not just fundraise with big box sales organizations, but also try to have events that are outside of the school day for families and staff engagement. The PTO hopes to build a sense of community and awareness outside of the school day that goes beyond what they can do within the school day.
“The prizes vary from Spirit of Springfield donating Bright Nights passes for next year, we have a lot of restaurants in town like Frigo’s, Fazio’s, Max Burger, Typical Sicilian, La Cucina di Hampden House and more,” Reilly said. “It’s a really wide variety of prizes that are all from local East Longmeadow, Hampden and Springfield businesses. We thought it was a nice way for our school to partner with local businesses to do some good community relations as well.”
There are many gift cards from businesses like Competitive Edge, Hot Oven Cookies, Western Mass Lawn Greetings, Tre Olive, 4Run3, The Apple Place, The Depot at Graham Central Station and Perron’s Auto Body. There’s a free photo session and a family four-pack for the Springfield Museums. Pioneer Gymnastics and Dance Inc have donated free classes, and Tony’s Barber Shop donated free haircuts and shampoo gift bundles.
“We have gifts from Breezy Knoll Boards, Maureen’s Sweet Shop and The Flower Shed,” Reilly saod. “We are so grateful for all the donations and support of the local people.”
Usually when Mapleshade PTO fundraises, Reilly said they meet with the teachers and principal at the school and come up with what they feel would best support them.
Whether it’s more programs or more supplies, they try to provide what teachers and staff would like. Wherever the need is, the PTO’s mission is to support and enhance Mapleshade’s learning. They ask for feedback from the teachers and principal as to where this money would best serve the students.
“Just getting the word out is great for us,” Reilly replied. “We didn’t have a monetary number in mind because we didn’t know how it was going to go so at this point, we’re just appreciative that people have started to support our calendar fundraiser and see what it will bring us.”
Should readers want to buy a $10 calendar, they can email Mapleshade PTO at pto.mapleshade@gmail.com where their parent volunteers will arrange to give it to them.