Consider it a gift that you learned you had false friends and colleagues. And your kids can benefit too.....those others kids are not kids you might want yours to befriend, if its true that the fruit doesnt fall far from the ol tree. So maybe try to learn from your experience , as hard as it may be. Good luck.

serendipity hits it on the nail again, "SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on your principal for allowing these women to do what they did and to treat you the way they did." at least, if there is a silver lining or two,you have been made aware of a potential leadership issue at that level.

Wow! This is all so horrifically terrible on so many levels. I would have contacted any of the establishments you received gift certificates from that were missing. They usually are numbered and the establishment would then know what number certificate was stolen and could stop use on them when someone came in to use them. I also would have reported the stolen certificates to the police. I would have let the board know it too and I bet they would have all resurfaced quickly. Hell, I would have made sure no one would have gotten away with taking them and using them.

The really sad part in all of this is what they have done to you with information you confided in them. Clearly you see now that none of these people were your friends nor do any of them have a shred of human decency. They used what you confided in them to make you look incompetent and cover up their stealing by making you the scapegoat. What a frightening reality that these are the people volunteering to work with children.

For your sake and sanity I think you did the right thing by resigning and getting away from these people. I do not see how any good for you could come of your staying in it. As it would seem that they will just continue to blame you and your illness for wherever they fail. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on your principal for allowing these women to do what they did and to treat you the way they did. Just know that you are a far better person then all of them combined. If you want to be involved in your children's lives find another outlet like scouts or sports and get far away from these witches.

Mom#3 - I am deeply concerned for you and your PTO board. From your post I know you are 100% committed to the PTO and the children it strives to provide for. In reading through your post I do not believe you did anything wrong other than to underestimate the power of a clique in a small town.
I would like to commend you on your hard work obtaining all of the donations; many posts on this board have stated how difficult getting donations can be - you are a pro. A second 'way to go' is also due for your ability to spot a conflict of interest when you were offered a bribe.
As far as what to do - well – your post basically states the Principle looked the other way so I think there will be some rough times ahead. By your board resignation you may have given up the power of a board member you need to affect change but rest assured you are still a general member if you wish to remain active. The main question I ask of you is what would you like to do? How much do you want to invest into working this problem? I am sure there will be a few more sleepless nights for you while you decide how far you want to take this but know we are all here for you and will give you the best we have to help you.

I am 1st vice Fundraising on the Executive board. This year, we decided to have a silent auction with our annual Fall Festival. Our PTO appoints committee chairperson for each function. The President decided to elect a friend of hers to be over the silent auction event. The auction wasn't planned properly and there really wasn't enough time to prepare for the kind of auction we wanted to have. So I went out and obtained donations/prizes/giftcards, etc. from various businesses in our area. I obtained $3500 in actual retail value from the various businesses in our area. We also had one or two more peole obtaining donations. When I turned over all of my donations to her, she told me to take the MP3 player for all of my hard work. I told her no that I didn't want to do that. Then she asked me if I didn't care she was going to give the Golf gift certicate valued at over $200.00 to her husband. I told her "NO" that was suppose to go towards raising money for our school. I told her that any expenses she accrued she would be reimbursed as long as she had her receipt. Anyway, I didn't know what to do. I know the proper procedure would be to notify my President but earlier this year, I told her that I had Bipolar disorder and ever since I told her that she has refused to let me do my job. This is my second year as 1st vice and last year was wonderful, she respected my opinion and let me do my job. I have had Bipolar since 2001, and really didn't want to let too many people know about it due to the stigma some people who don't undertand the disease act and my President is one of those. So when the lady (chairmen) told me she was going to take the golf certificate, I didn't tell my President at first because I had heard from the treasurer, who I considered a friend of mine, that my President had been talking about me and my bipolar disorder and basically laughing about it. So I decided to confide in the treasure and ask her if she would do an audit before the auction to make sure everything was there. I had given the treasurer all my receipts and all she had to do was to go in and ask the chairperson for everyone else receipts. I told her not to tell anyone, just to go through and inspect the gift baskets before the auction, that way if there were some things missing, then she could address it without anyone person having to point fingers. Instead of keeping it quiet, she told everyone on the executive board including the President and according to the treaurer, she stated she brought it up to the President in the front office of the school and the treasurer stated that the President said "Don't you know, she is on drugs and she probably just lost the golf certificate" I was so upset, I couldn't talk to her, so my husband called the President and talked about the situation. According to the President, she stated that the only thing she said was that I was going through some medicaion changes and I could have misplaced it, which upsets me also because I only told two people on the board about my bipolar and asked for them to keep it quiet because I didn't want everyone to know. I am stable and have been for quiet some time. I do forget things some times but when it comes to business especially PTO business handling $3500 worth of donations, I do not forget. I made copies of everysingle receipt I gave to the business owners and made a spreadsheet outlining who donated, what was donated, total retail value and contact name and number. Anyway, the treasure never did the audit and I did talk to the Principal and she asked if I has talked to PTO President and at that point I did and the Principal stated "well sometimes these things just happen." In the end, the Principal nor did the President do anything about it. I don't think they even believed me. It was my word against hers. She had total control of putting the baskets together and making out the sheet with the contents. She didn't do a minimum bid which she was instructed to do this. The minimum bid was put in our minutes. I have done a lot of research on silent auctions, and we didn't follow any of the rules we were supposed to do. Anytime I tried to bring up an idea with the silent auction the president would just ignore me. I suggested we have more volunteers and when putting the baskets together, there should at least be three people involved (chairperson, treasure, vice-president fundraising.) We have to Vice-President positions and although she said she believed my, she didn't stand up for me. After, it was all over I found out that three other of my certificates were missing. They all tried to blame it on me for loosing them when in all actuality, those certicates were probably already taken. 5 days after the auction was over, the president called me and told me that they had found every other gift certificate except one, and I'm thinking well where were they the night of the auction. My golf certificate stated 1 round of golf with 4 players no cart included. There was a golf basket there that night and it stated 4 rounds of golf cart included. The basket was wrapped and I didn't get to actually see the certificate, but according to the chairperson and the president, that was the certificate. I have lived here for 3-4years and my president and most of the executive board go to the same church and are all friends with the lady elected to chair the auction, so of course they believed her. No rules or by-laws were followed, the chairperson should have allowed me to help put the baskets together but I wasn't allowed because she wanted to do it herself and the President backed her. In the end, I turned in my resignation to the Principal, Vice-Pricipal, and President. The President said she was going to tell the other members that I had to resign due to health problems and I told her she had better not bring that up because my health had nothing to do with why I am resigining. I told her to tell them the truth. That I had been offered a bribe so she could take a golf certificate and give to her husband. I don't know what was said or how it turned out, but I have been deeply hurt by this and the people in the school has heard about what happened but their version, not mine. I hope and pray that this doesn't hurt my child somehow. All I know was I was trying to do the right thing and it backfired on me. When I told the President about the chairman offering me to basically steal from the school, she decided to believe her over me. I know they are friends but the PTO knows my track record and I am good at fundraising. Why would I make up a lie about her. It doesn't make sense and they should know that. The PTO got away with stealing, not following rules, or the by-laws. That lady would not accept any help or advice from me at all. Anyway, I'm sorry this is such a long letter, but I have really been hurt over this and I loved being on the PTO board but I just can't be involved with them now. I did write a policy & procedure for having a silent auction and gave it to the other fundraising lady and I also gave a copy of it to the Parlimentarian