The Literacy for a Lifetime % works at 50% match by Usborne. For example, if you get $1,000 in grant money to purchase Usborne books, Usborne will then give you $500 in additional - free - books. Thus, you'll get $1,500 in books for your school's library/classrooms for that $1,000 grant. I think there is a stipulation about where the grant money is coming from - not sure.
Check out the Usborne site to find a local rep, and have them come to a PTO meeting. They can go over all the fund-raising options with you (RFTS, Book Fair, LFL) and find which would work best for you. RFTS raises a lot of money and gets the kids involved in reading, and Book Fairs are good options anytime in the year and don't require pledges: www.ubah.com/leads.aspx
This is GREAT information! I'm meeting with the librarian soon, and will ask if she would like me to put together "wish boxes" for the upcoming sale. She's complained over and over that the teachers can put together wish lists but "never bother with it". I'm sure parents would participate if there were cute boxes to put their purchases in.
I LOVE the "literacy for a lifetime" approach to grants. This looks like a great program. My question is, can our PTO donate $500.00 to Osborne and get $1,000.00 worth of books? If it has to be parent and corporate donation, when is the most successful time to run it? And how have you approached it? We're currently doing a basket auction fundraiser in March to benefit the library. (As I'm sure you know) LOTS of work! Would this 50/50 grant program be a substitute to the auction for next year? How slick would THAT be!
Our NJ rep is Kimberly Bouchard, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.ubah.com/M2441
. But contact your local Usborne Rep for service to your school -- www.ubah.com/leads.aspx
(this is the main Corporate site).
Usborne offers several fund-raising options, including the Book Fair. The school can earn a lot of free books as well as cash - depending on sales levels and your preference. www.readingisagift.com
There is also the Reach for the Stars Program, which is a pledge-based program (kids read x hours a week, gather pledges), and the participating kids and school can earn free books and cash. This makes considerably more money and really gets kids excited about reading. Usborne does this with Preschools as well as Elementary schools.
Lastly there is the Literacy for a Lifetime program, which is a matching-grant program. Donations are matched 50% in free books by Usborne. www.literacyforalifetime.com/
We set up an annual budget just for the librarian so that she can buy whatever books she wants.
During our book fairs, we set up a wish box for each teacher with a list (that they have filled in) of books that they want for their classroom. The parents just go to their box, view the list, buy the book and put it in their wishbox and at the end of the BF we try to buy the books that haven't been bought.
We also provide the "donated by" book stickers so that parents can put them in the books too. We place them next to every wish box.
Our school's library fundraisers are Box Tops and two scholastic fairs during conferences. Do you happen to have the usborne book fair information site or telephone number?
Our PTO has set aside additional budget money to purchase books and run a month long reading insentive program. This PTO money used to be used for media other than books (classroom T.V.'s for instance), but our parents decided to change the focus of this line item. Our goal is to purchase colorful, fun books that kids really enjoy reading. Hopefully that will encourage them to read the books instead of just hauling badly worn books back and forth from the library each week (and never cracking the cover!).
