BARNSTABLE UNITED JANUARY NEWSLETTER Greetings from the Barnstable United PTA!

1. BARNSTABLE UNITED JANUARY NEWSLETTER Greetings from the Barnstable United PTA! As we begin a new year, we wanted to share with you what the PTA has been up to and what we are planning for the remaining part of the year. Meadow Farms: In November, we held the Meadow Farms Fundraiser where we raised over $7000! This money is spent directly on our students in various ways. We held a contest to see who could be the biggest seller. Our winners were… Mikayla Boyle-4th grade Most class participation: 4th grade-Mrs. Merrill 5th grade-Mrs. Ewald Congratulations and thank you to all of our sellers. As you know there has been a lot of talk about putting a playground in at our school. There is a group of very enthusiastic 5th graders who have spearheaded a fundraising movement, that they call “Project Playground”. Project Playground: By: Mary Terwilliger I am a 5th grader at Barnstable United Elementary School. One day, my friends Caroline Williams, Alison Kearney and Ashleigh Capelle and I were outside at recess when we wondered “Why doesn’t our school have playground like most elementary schools?” We thought about this and formed a committee, ‘Project Playground’ to begin to address the problem by planning ideas for fundraising. We set out decorated jars at local businesses and we had a Halloween party fundraiser and raised over $850! The PTA has also helped us with a Holiday Gift Auction and raised over $14,000! We have sent out letters to government figures including Michelle Obama. We are currently planning a Read-A-Thon to raise money in the school and have a lot more ideas! • We have built faith in ourselves and our peers and believe that we were going to get a playground. Our classmates have immense hope in us and are constantly giving us advice on the subject. The school wants a playground, and my friends and I refuse to give up, but our $75,000 goal is not close yet. We hope to reach this goal so that we may give a playground to the future students of BU. • * So far, the girls from Project • Playground have raised over • $1400 from donations at the • dance, penny drive and bake • sale. GREAT job girls! • Holiday Gift Extravaganza: • On December 1st we held an auction to raise money to help build a playground. The auction was attended by over 100 guests who were treated to wonderful food and drink at the Hyannis Country Club while bidding on live and silent auction items. We had so many very generous volunteers who helped the cause by making basket donations, silent auction, and live auction items. We truly could not have done it without your generosity! Additionally, we had dozens of volunteers who helped at the event and an auction committee headed up by Heather Arrascue. A special thank you to Matt Bresette who was our live auctioneer and quite an entertainer. We raised over $14,000, which is going towards the playground fund. Additionally, The PTA has donated $10,000 to the playground cause. • The BU PTA has been in discussions with the school board about funding for a new playground. We are anxiously awaiting a decision by them in regards to funding and placement of a brand new playground. • All this talk of a playground, what else does the PTA help fund? • School Dance • In October, storyteller Len Cabral visited the 5th graders. • Ice Cream Social

2. Book Fair: In December we held our annual Scholastic Book Fair. We had a very successful book fair and a special thank you to Anna Snow and all of our volunteers who worked the event. We raised $2600. Typically, we will take the profits in cash for the winter book fair and then in the Spring we will take payment in form of books from Scholastic. With the monies raised, the PTA is able to buy a brand new book for every student.Encouraging students to pick up a book and read is the real payoff from these book fairs. Courtyard Initiative: As you may know, we were up for a grant Sponsored by Clorox to rebuild and beautify our courtyard. As of the close of the voting on 12/19, we were in 3rd place!!! The Clorox website states that 7 winners will be announced early in 2013. Stay tuned and thank you to all of our voters and enthusiastic students of BU and elsewhere! If you are not receiving our weekly updates, please contact us at buespta@gmail.com and ask us to add you to our mailings. Thank you as always for your continued support. We would like to say a special thank you to our wonderful and caring teachers. They are the heart and soul of our school and their conviction and dedication to our students is overwhelming! Thank you for all you do! Save the dates. Upcoming PTA meetings… Jan. 15, Feb. 12, March 19, April 9, May 21, June 11 All meetings are held in the library at 7:00pm. • PTA funded events cont. • January 29th Museum of Boston Traveling Programs presents Wind, Water and Weather for 4th grade • February 11th Young Audiences of America presents The Immigrant Experience for 4th grade • Snacks for all students during MCAS testing. • T-Shirts for every student on Field Day • Teacher Appreciation Lunch • Eyes on Owls • Discovery Dome • PTA funds a portion of the yearbook, helping to defray the cost for purchase and donates many yearbooks to families in need. • Kite Making for 4th grade • Math Night • This year, the PTA also was able to sponsor 3 families for holiday gift buying through the Children Helping Children program. • The Cobb Fund is a special trust that makes generous donations to the schools every year and is separate from monies donated by individual PTAs. In the past, the Cobb Fund has paid for the 4th grade trip to the Museum of Science and the 5th grade trip to the Wellfleet Audubon. • Bake Sale: • We raised almost $2000. A huge thank you to our coordinator, Jenn Brann and the dozens of volunteers who baked for and worked at the sale. • Stop and Shop A+: • If you are not aware, when you register your Stop & Shop card and spend it at the store, BU gets a portion of your purchase donated to our school. You don’t need to do anything other than register your card every year. If you haven’t done so, please search “Stop and Shop A+” on-line or check out our school’s website for more information. • We had a contest to see who could collect the most numbers. The winners were… • 4th Grade-Ayden Wolfe Room 233 • 5th Grade-Jack Dace Room 126