From Redlands, California, we came across a truly down and dirty fundraising article.
New equipment for the kindergarten playground is important to Lugonia Elementary School Principal Kathy Jeide - so much so that she was willing to bribe her students to help the school get the new equipment.
Last year, she says, students helped with a school PTA fundraiser by bringing in roughly 1,000 box tops from various consumer products ranging from cereal boxes to Ziploc bag boxes. Each top is worth 10 cents when redeemed through the Box Tops For Education program sponsored by General Mills Inc.
This year, Jeide upped the ante during a school assembly. She announced to students that if each classroom brought in 300 box tops, she would eat a worm.
The students raised 9,000 - satisfying their end of the bargain to help acquire brand new tricycles for the kindergarten playground’s re-opening in the fall.
At the assembly Friday morning, she led students and staff in a flag salute outside of her office, followed by the singing of George M. Cohan’s “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
Fifth-grader Jaselin Lopez impatiently uttered an accusation under her breath: “She’s stalling.”
Jeide admitted that she was indeed stalling, as she set out her props and ingredients with a facetious flair on a table draped with a red cloth. The table setting included a fine set of utensils, a classy water glass, a tray of meal worms and a bottle of Pepto-Bismo.
