In a few weeks, thousands of children in our community will be beginning a new school year. We are all aware of the financial challenges that face the mosdos of our community and others. Yet most of us feel helpless to alleviate the situation, for there are so many worthy organizations competing for our limited tzedaka funds. Yet there are many ways individuals can help support our schools and their PTAs without spending any extra money. Whether you are single or married, and whether or not you currently have school-age children, you can benefit the children of our community by spending just a few minutes of your time to take advantage of programs that donate money to schools. The following fundraising initiatives have raised thousands of dollars for local schools and have tremendous potential to help the schools much more, with your participation.
Store Card Programs
Various stores allow their cardholders to designate a school to receive a percentage of their purchases.
If you shop at Target regularly, the Target Redcard (available as a credit or debit card) gives you 5% off every Target purchase you make, as well as free shipping on target.com orders. In addition, Target donates 1% of all purchases to the school designated by the cardholder. To apply for a card, go to www.target.com, or visit your local Target store. Once you are approved for the RedCard, designate the school you would like to benefit by logging on to www.target.com/tcoe or calling 1-800-316-6142.
Giant BonusBucks program: Giant BonusCard holders can designate up to two schools to benefit every time they shop. Even if you aren’t a regular Giant customer but only shop there a couple of times a year (pre-Yom Tov grape juice sales, anyone?), it can’t hurt to designate local schools to receive points from those purchases. Schools are awarded a percentage of the $2 million Giant donates to schools every year based on their percentage of the total points earned by all participating schools. Don’t worry about following the math; just sign up your card to benefit local schools by calling 1-877-275-2758 or going to www.giantfood.com/aplus.
ShopRite and Safeway Rewards for Education: ShopRite Price Plus and Safeway Club card holders can earn up to 3% of purchases for the school they designate. Register for either or both programs by calling 1-800-931-6258 or visiting www.eScrip.com.
The Office Depot 5% Back to Schools Program earns the school credits towards free supplies. In order for schools to benefit, you must mention the school’s ID number every time you shop in store or online.
Box Tops for Education
Imagine you had a hole in your wallet, and every time you pulled out your wallet another dime fell out and got lost. While it wouldn’t be a great loss on the first day, over time, those dimes would add up to tens, even hundreds, of lost dollars. That’s what happens every time you throw out a cereal or Kleenex box without cutting out the Box Top. Box Tops appear on many commonly used items, including General Mills cereals, Gold Medal flour, Kleenex tissues, Reynolds products, Hefty trash bags, and Avery office supplies. Although they’re worth only 10 cents apiece, they quickly add up to a lot of money for schools. Keep an envelope or Ziploc bag (make sure to cut the box top off the box!) to collect these as you come across them, and when it’s full, give it to a friend, relative, or neighbor with school-age children. They will be thrilled, because the schools offer incentives and prizes for students to bring in box tops.
Labels for Education
This program is similar to Box Tops for Education but on a much smaller scale. These labels can be found on Post cereals, Glad bags, and Bic products, among others. By collecting them, schools can earn points towards playground equipment and classroom supplies. Bnos Yisroel is promoting the collection of these labels, so if you clip them, drop them off at Bnos Yisroel’s office or give them to a Bnos Yisroel student or teacher.
Amazon
Have you shopped at Amazon.com recently? Chances are that the readers of this article have spent thousands of dollars collectively on shoes, electronics, books, housewares, diapers, and many other products in the last month alone. The website www.fundyourpta.org harnesses the power of affiliate marketing to earn schools a whopping 6% of purchases made at Amazon.com. So if every one of our readers begins his or her Amazon shopping at our local schools’ specific www.fundyourpta.org addresses, listed in the table below (which will be saved in their web browsers after the first time they use them), they can earn our schools tens – and maybe hundreds – of dollars every month! (Amazon has another program to benefit charities called AmazonSmile, but since it only donates 0.5% to charities, we recommend that supporters use the schools’ fundyourpta.org pages instead.)
Gift Cards
Bais Yaakov’s Ladies Auxiliary has gift cards to most national retailers available for purchase in different denominations. If you plan to give someone a gift card for Target, Lands End, Macy’s, Barnes and Noble, Bed Bath and Beyond, Home Depot, Starbucks, Walmart/Sam’s Club or many other stores, why not benefit Bais Yaakov as well? Call Mrs. Gross at 410-363-3300 ext. 403, or email certificates@baisyaakov.net for more information.
Agudah Scrip
Keep track of your charity contributions and benefit local institutions by using Agudah scrip to give tzedaka to meshulachim; a percentage of the amount you donate will be given the school or shul designated on the scrip. Both Talmudical Academy and Torah Institute sell preprinted Agudah scrip to benefit their schools. To purchase scrip to benefit TA, call 410-602-9942 or visit www.talmudicalacademy.org. TI Agudah scrip is available at various locations; call Mr. Alexander Weil at 410-262-6136 for more information. Of course, you can always purchase blank scrip from the Agudah’s scrip vendors and fill in the beneficiary yourself.
BJ’s Membership
If you are looking to purchase or renew a membership to BJ’s, an Ohr Chadash Academy fundraiser, running through September 23, will give you $10 off an annual membership, plus three free months of membership. At $40 for 15 months membership, it’s an excellent deal for you and will benefit Ohr Chadash as well. Contact ocapta@ohrchadashbaltimore for an application.
You may not be a philanthropist, but you, too, can have the satisfaction of helping our local schools. Please take just a few moments of your time to take advantage of these programs, so that money you are spending anyway can benefit the children of our community.
