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April 10, 2008

Fun day for fundraising

Class honored for winning ‘box-top derby’

By Matthew Hill

Mrs. Pat Hudson’s first-grade class had plenty of reasons to celebrate Thursday at Crescent Elementary School.

Not only is spring break around the corner, but her students were also declared the winners of what Wendy Sullivan termed a box-top derby.

The victory conferred on them the honor of an afternoon party outdoors — replete with fruit, popcorn, games and three miniature ponies provided courtesy of Jackie Williams and his sister, Amanda.

According to Sullivan, a Crescent teacher-coordinator for General Mills’ Box Tops For Education program, Hudson’s class brought in 1,400 box tops during the 10-week contest. Crescent Elementary has 321 students enrolled in classes ranging from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

“Our goal was $500 (in money raised for the school), and we far exceeded that,” Sullivan explained. The derby element of the contest came about when teachers’ faces were placed on the bodies of jockeys representing the various classrooms. Those were placed on horses on a little track on the wall.

As box tops gradually came in from the students, each jockey — or classroom — would progress on the track toward a symbolic finish line. Sullivan said it was decided to bring the competition to a conclusion Thursday due to students being out of school today and all next week.

Box Tops For Education was initiated by General Mills in 1996. According to its Web site, the program has since helped 90,000 participating schools earn over $200 million. Schools can glean up to $60,000 each year via the endeavor.

The winning classroom was announced at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, and the party of “fruit, games, popcorn and ponies” — as Sullivan put it — commenced at 1 p.m.

“We’re dressed in our boots and jeans,” she quipped. “We wanted to do something different and healthy. Drema Stanley (a parent-volunteer) was critical. She did all of the tallying and did all of the work. We worked together. I couldn’t have done this without her.”

For more information on the program, visit its online headquarters at www.boxtops4education.com.

— E-mail: mhill@register-herald.com

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