We have used our Girl Scout Troops for babysitting during conferences. They have been wonderful and come with their leaders. The leaders have CPR and first aid training and background checks done by Girl Scouts. We use one of the Kindergarten rooms which has been perfect.

This year, we recruited our VP's wife to purchase some theme approprite crafts from like Oriental Trading Co. for each months meeting. We gave her a check at the beginning of the year to order what she needed for an estimated number of kids for each meeting. Then at each meeting she sat with the kids that had to attend the meeting with their parents and helped them with the crafts. I think we should have advertised it more, to get more attendence, but it went over very well with the parents and kids that did attend.

We started offering age appropriate childcare services during our monthly meetings this year and the big area where this has helped is with the husbands of regulars. We actually increased our active male involvement by 500% (from just me) by doing this. This has also helped recently with the sports season starting up. Since many families have two kids, or more, they can still have dad go to practice while mom comes to the PTO meetings. In previous years our quantity at the meetings dropped off from 25 to 30 to less than 10. This year we started in the high 40's, and even now have been hitting in the mid-20's.

We first started the program using a local college outreach program, but found just paying a teenager was easier. We initially used our own sitter, so would pick them up and bring them home, but have started use an active members older sibling, who is happy to get the $20.

I found that my company had a volunteer Incentive Program and would pay any non-profit organization that an employyee volunteers for $100 a quarter. I used this to fund the sitting.

So I highly recommend it.

Regards,
PresidentJim

Do any of you have babysitting at your PTO events for the parents who volunteer?

We just sent out a survey a few weeks ago and got a huge response back. Many parents said they can't volunteer at events because they have the kids with them. We were planning on next year to get someone for our meetings so I was thinking maybe it would help get a few more volunteers at our events where we really need them.
I know it won't be a fix all parents will have another excuse, but at least it would be one less. What do you think?
In our high school the kids have to do community service hours and I was going to check there, set up tables with activities and keep the kids busy or maybe even a homework table for the older kids who come with the parents.