How to Raise Money for Schools with Box Tops for Education

What school doesn’t need extra cash? The Box Tops For Education is one of the nation’s most successful programs to raise money to use for what schools need most. Since 1996 more than 90,000 K-8 grade schools have raised over $600 million dollars for everything from pencils to field trips to playgrounds equipment. If you’re not one of them, it might be time to consider it. Here are the details.
There are over 250 participating products generally found at your local grocery store from baking products to snack foods and even clothing. Simply clip the box top coupon, send them into your school, and redeem each one for 10 ¢.

Types of Participating Products

• Hanes® apparel
• Betty Crocker®
• Bisquick®
• Fiber One®
• General Mills® Cereals
• Reynolds®
• Ziplock®
• Green Giant®
• Old El Paso®
• Progresso®
• Hamburger Helper®
• Scott®
• Kleenex®
• Horizon Organic®
• Land O’ Lakes®
• Pilsbury®
• Yoplait®
• Chex Mix®
• Bugles®
• Gardetto’s®
• Mott’s®
• Nature Valley®
• LÄRABAR®
• Hefty®
• Avery®

If you create a program that involves the entire school including parents, teachers and families, you can imagine that these box tops add up fast! Sign up is free and easy and can be done here.
Lots of perks are available to schools who have signed up for the program. There are ebox tops for when you shop online at places like Walmart and Expedia, and lots of handy coupons and recipes specific to Box Tops products. By signing up and signing in you can track and compare how you are doing and participate in contests to earn even more.

How to Organize Box Tops at Your School

Make sure to designate a Box Tops Coordinator at the school, someone who is responsible for collecting box tops and mailing them in. Mail in can be done throughout the year. Then, twice a year in December and April, checks are mailed directly to the school. Schools can use Box Tops cash to purchase whatever they need with a limit of $20,000 per year.
Oftentimes, schools will reward classes with the most box tops with a pizza or ice cream party at the end of the year. Buyer beware, not all Box Tops products are especially healthy and this causes some concern in parents, but there are a number of healthy or non-food products, you probably already consume that can be turned into cash for your school with a little effort.
It would certainly be a helpful project if the Box Tops Coordinator could create a guide to Box Tops products so that parents can have an easy reference. Some schools design handy printables to track individual family’s progress or design a summer collection program. Something to keep in mind is that Box Tops do have expiration dates and are not counted if the date has expired.
Items like toilet paper, sandwich bags and sports socks are probably already on your shopping list, so why not make your grocery dollar go a little farther and toss a dime towards local schools? Cuts to education are all too familiar; you can imagine what a difference a few hundred dollars could make to an elementary school library.
Raise money for schools by trying Box Tops For Education and see what a difference it can make in your child’s school.