I am also planning Staff Appreciation Week (in Feb 07) and I'm looking for a theme. But our themes revolve more around thanks than the meal. Examples of what we've done: A World of Thanks - similar to around the world, Thanking you from the Bottom of our Hearts - hearts/valentines, Peace Love & Thanks -sixties, we've also done the Star/Hollywood one. Does anyone have any theme ideas that might have a thank you type slogan that would work with it?
last year our budget for Teacher luncheons was $1000, this year it's $750. We have about 20 parents signed up. We do it the first friday of each month. We do staff birthdays every 3 months (just cake and balloons).
last year they did: Italian, potato bar, sandwich days.
this year we've done: Aug: Italian, Sept: Potato bar with chili, Nov: Thanksgiving feast, and for Dec, I'm stumped.
We have plenty of salads for our veggie eaters.
We get TONS of desserts.
We did soup and salad during teacher conferences on late nights.
the High Shchools once did "spud and a rub". they had a potato bar and 2 massage chairs and a sign up sheet for every 5 mins from local college kids in training.
boysmom is definitely a seasoned one here with great ideas! We have done the mexican, the spud one, the italian and the crockpot soup one--her descriptions are right on target! We have also done a salad bar -- very similar to the potato bar idea. As you can get people to doante the items, the cost is less to the PTO as a whole, especially on a limited budget.
We have also done breakfast with juice, coffee, casseroles, breads and bagels to start the morning off right. The most recent idea we have done is "Sweet 16th" -- we provided homemade desserts available during lunch time on the 16ht of the month. Something a little different and still yummy.