Competitive clipping

They’re on your boxes of Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs. They’re on your Green Giant vegetable cans. There’s even one on your box of Kleenex.

They’re called Box Tops for Education, and one by one, these collectable bits of cardboard and plastic are helping fund education at area schools.

The Box Tops label can be found on hundreds of grocery, kitchen and office items sold by participating companies (see list below). Clipping a Box Top from a product and donating it to a participating school allows that school to redeem it for 10 cents. Schools receive checks two to three times during the year and can use the money as they choose.

And those dimes accumulate quickly. Last year, Creston Community Schools raised $4,283.80 through the program. During a two-week fall fundraiser this year, it raised another $700.

Scott Driskell, Creston third- through fifth-grade principal, said the elementary uses Box Tops money to offset field trip expenses, purchase recess equipment and other things that sometimes might not be built into the budget.

However, unlike other money-raising strategies, Driskell said Box Tops drives don’t pressure businesses, parents and community members to donate to yet another fundraiser.

“This fundraiser isn’t hitting up businesses ... or hitting up parents,” he said. “It’s just getting them to pay attention to what’s in their cabinets.”

In recent years, teachers have used Box Tops money to purchase books for family literacy nights, fund a fourth-grade trip to the Science Center of Iowa and more. The funds from this fall’s contest will purchase student rewards for the school’s Positive Behavior in Schools behavior reinforcement program.

Last year’s total nearly doubled what Creston has averaged in years past, said Becky Baker, who’s been Creston’s Box Tops coordinator since 2004. Baker attributes this to the PTO’s organization of a contest among the classrooms.

“It’s amazing what competition can do,” Baker said.

Erin Kiley, Creston PTO secretary, organizes the Box Tops contests. Last year, she said, winning classrooms got to spray-paint the hair and spray silly string on Driskell and elementary principal Callie Anderson.

After the students met the $1,500 spring goal, the final challenge was to kiss a goat. For this year’s $700 fall fundraiser, the two principals will race find a piece of gum inside a pie without using their hands, then blow a bubble.

“This always excites the kids to see the principals get directly involved,” Kiley said.

Although she hasn’t made official plans yet, Kiley anticipates another contest beginning in February.

Driskell said the PTO plays a valuable role in helping the school raise these funds, through Box Tops and other ways.

“It’s incredible to me the energy, the ideas and the amount of money they’ve been able to help raise,” Driskell said. “Without them, we’d be lost when it comes to those extra funds, and I know every one of our teachers feel that way.”

To donate Box Tops to Creston Schools at any time, send them to Panther Pride PTO at P.O. Box 50 in Creston.

You can also drop them off in designated boxes at the early childhood or elementary school foyers or send them with a student. If you live outside Creston and want to contribute to your area school, mail them to the office of your school of choice, drop them off or send them with a child.

Participating brands:

According to the Box Tops for Education website, Box Tops partners currently include:

• Boise

• General Mills

• Green Giant Fresh

• Hefty

• Kleenex

• Land O' Lakes

• Mott's

• Reynolds

• Scott

• Ziploc

Box Tops for Education can be found on many of these companies' items.