Donation Requests: My point of view....

As we move into the holiday season and it seems like we are asked for donations every time we turn around, I thought this was a good time to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has ever donated to our school in the form of their time, their food, their skills or their money. All of those donations are equally important. As one moves higher in the PTO offices, you really see just how important raising funds are for our school. Every year, the district expects more and more from our school but has less and less of their own dollars to give to support it. I am amazed at how much the PTO actually gives toward the day to day running of the school and contributes toward its budget. Because of this, sometimes the officers can get a bit wrapped up in our desire to meet our financial goals. We know how important it is to our kids. When we get "wrapped up" this way, we can sometimes come across as pushy and insensitive and we may inadvertently hurt someone's feelings. This is NEVER our intent. I hope everyone realizes that the PTO is made up of volunteers. None of us makes a dime for all the sweat and time we pour into helping the school. We are not trained. We have no formal education on how to raise money or run a business (and that is what we do). We are just given the job and told to go for it. If we didn't succeed, we would let a LOT of teachers, administrators and our own kids down. That is unacceptable to me. That being said if there are some hurt feelings along the way because we were too pushy, I hope that those parents can forgive us. It truly was not our intent. We can always grow and learn from our mistakes and do better next time, but we hope everyone remembers that we are just trying our best and are doing it without any guidance, pay or much support.

So when you see us begging for you to go to Spring Creek or Barnes and Noble Weekend or asking for yet another batch of cookies, please remember we wish we didn't have to mention it either. We just are doing the best we can to support the school the best way we know how.

Thank you again for listening, helping and supporting Denton Creek and your PTO.
Lisa