How To Bring Universal Snack Program to Your School
How To Bring Universal Snack Program to Your School
Some followup info written by my school's PTA President
I’m so pleased that my newsletter about universal programs at schools resonated with so many people! A few asked if I could share supporting information with my readers who could then share it with their PTA leaders and school administrators. Here it is. Thanks to PTA president Linda Yu for writing this up. Future inquiries about the snack program and other universal programs from this public elementary school in Durham, NC can be directed to moreheadpta@gmail.com.
#snacksforall was pulled together right before the 2023-2024 school year started - I (Linda Yu) worked with school principal Tyler Steketee to design out what the ask would be from families. I believe Tyler volunteered to handle the purchasing of the snacks, so we decided that the funds should go directly to the school instead of the PTA to reduce administrative overhead with funds transfers.
The purpose of centralizing snacks is twofold: reduce risk and maximize equity. What we heard before we implemented is that there would be classes that didn't have snacks (forgetting/lack of family engagement and/or communication), and there would be classes with "better" snacks than others. there were a couple of scares as well with students who had allergies - so this effort around #snacksforall, while it takes time and sustained effort, is in support of our mission - to engage with and empower all our families and to advocate for all of our students.
We purchase our snacks at Sam’s Club, but the time and effort to go to Sam's Club to shop and bring snacks back proved to be beyond the capacity of the school administration throughout 2023-2024. they could only bring checks in the exact amount of the Sam's Club purchase. in addition, even though the PTA purchased a Sam’s Club tax-exempt membership in February, the school was notified by DPS Finance that they could not have their Sam's Club purchases exempt from tax because the schools themselves are not tax-exempt.
The funds that came to the school only lasted through Q3. Tyler had indicated that the school spent about $400/week on snacks for a student body of ~220. because the PTA had such a successful silent auction, we were able to fund $3,000 for the last quarter of snacks.
When the PTA initiated 2024-2025 planning in May with school leadership, the PTA board proposed fundraising in a 'package' sense - “what are the things that we can bundle together as asks of the community so that we aren't asking families to give money on such a frequent basis?”
We have Sam's Club deliver 2-3 times a week to the school, they have free delivery for the plus memberships. There have been hiccups the first couple of weeks because they use a 3rd party to deliver.
We try to make notes in the order that these are snacks for students and specify that they should notify Tyler's school number when they are arriving. I do try to aim for fresh fruit for 2 or 3 days out of that week, but it depends on the schedule, i try to have the fruit deliveries on Tuesdays/Wednesdays so produce is consumed before the weekend starts and the fruit gets tossed.
The PTA has a debit card so that definitely helps reduce the number of reimbursements that would happen if I were paying out of pocket.
– Linda Yu
