Volunteer opportunities – Can you chip in some time?

There are so many opportunities, large and small, for volunteers this year. Please take a look at this list and think about if your time, interests and skills might match these needs. Contact President Brian Morgan (360-970-9513) if you have questions or want to sign up! The pay isn’t great but I promise you’ll get plenty of genuine thanks and a great feeling inside.

• Adopt-a-road coordinator – we have signed up with the City of Lacey for a 0.5-mile stretch of roadway to keep clear of debris and trash. We need someone to coordinate volunteers for this program throughout the year, at monthly intervals.
• Halloween fun night general volunteers!! (Friday, October 30^th)
• Fun Run volunteers (course monitors, for the most part – Date TBD
• Bazaar volunteers (set-up, breakdown) – Saturday, November 21^st
• Newsletter – articles and editing (these are normally published monthly)
• Yearbook – we need photographers who are willing to snap pictures at school and PTA events, as well as people to help coordinate the yearbook itself with our publisher.
• Fundraising – we need some additional input and ideas, not only with the upcoming spring fundraiser but to provide suggestions for next year’s fundraising!
• Business partner volunteers – soliciting local businesses for donations, informing them of the benefits of partnering with us
• Website development – we use the user-friendly Google blogspot to manage our web presence. No software needed!
• Book fair volunteers – these will probably coincide with the fall conferences in late October and we’ll need volunteers to staff the book fair during its hours of operation. No experience necessary!
• Coordinators for simple programs that we would like to implement, including “Donuts for Dads” and/or “Muffins for Moms”. These two would include arranging for food (perhaps through donations by businesses), volunteers and advertising the event to Mt. View parents. These programs can only be instituted if we have someone to coordinate them!
• Coordinators for a proposed military appreciation dinner or event.

If you have a program you would like PTA to consider, please give us your idea by sending it in, dropping it in our PTA suggestion box at the front of the school or in person at a PTA meeting! If you have a great idea, please come prepared to help implement it, if at all possible!

Yearbook photographers needed!

We need some people throughout the year to take candid pictures of Mt. View and PTA events for the 2009-2010 yearbook! Are you up for the challenge? You don't need to be a professional - we just want to have a large selection of fun pictures so the kids can look back, laugh and remember their friends over the summer next year... please contact Jodi Boutin if you want more information or want to volunteer.

Thanks!

Voter registration drives target parents, seniors

Did you know only an estimated 50 percent of NTPS parents are registered to vote? Or that even at age 17 ½ you can still register to vote? As part of Voter Education Month, the district is encouraging citizens to register to vote at schools or online. For more information and ideas on voter registration, go to www.nthurston.k12.wa.us/vote. Remember: Your Vote Counts! To register online visit http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/voterinformation/Pages/RegistertoVote.aspx.
Upcoming election dates: November 3, 2009 and February 9, 2010.

Support Mt. View simply by shopping at Albertson's!

Do you already shop at Albertson's? If you do, do you have an Albertson's rewards card? This is all you need to support Mountain View PTA! I know, I know - it sounds far too simple!

All you need to do is register your Albertson's card at the following link: http://www.albertsons.com/cp/

If you've registered before, you have to re-register every year, I believe, and indicate which school (or schools) you would like to support.

How much money does this raise for PTA? Well, each quarter we get a check from Albertson's for $40-$45. However, I'm sure we could net much more than that since we have not promoted this program very much in the past few years.

Please register your card today, while you're thinking about it! It costs you nothing!

You'll need Mountain View's account number with Albertson's (49000121093) and your own card number, of course.

Thank you, in advance! Please share this information with your friends and family who shop at Albertson's!

Clean-up Day @ Mt. View

Thanks very much to those of you who could donate some time this morning for Mountain View's annual fall clean-up day!

Here is a link to some pictures of the butterfly garden, where most of us focused. We made a dent but would like to schedule another clean-up day, hopefully with someone with some gardening know-how, before the colder weather hits us in earnest. Stay tuned for more details!

Here is a link to pictures of the grounds and butterfly garden, before school opened, to see the difference!

Thanks especially to:

• Glenn, Lucia and Daniel Grimm, who are perpetually at the school doing small and large clean-up behind the scenes. They are PTA members and were there, as usual, today!
• Teri - for bringing tons of crucial tools and her wonderful wheelbarrow, as well!
• Joy and her three kiddos (Logan, Connor and Sofia) - these guys are hard workers!
• Randy - for donating yet another few hours to Mountain View, with a smile on his face!
• Noah and Avery for pitching in with some weeding and sweeping
  

Upcoming Community Events

Arts Walk: Experience visual and performing arts in over 100 businesses by hundreds of artists on October 2 in downtown Olympia. Special features include hands-on family activities, demonstrations and impromptu street performances. Maps with listings of venues and artists are available two weeks before the event at participating locations and at The Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St. NW, in downtown Olympia. Visit the City of Olympia webpage for more info.

TVW SPECIAL REPORT

TVW SPECIAL REPORT ON EDUCATION REFORM AND FUNDING NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

For those of you who may have missed one or both segments of TVW’s special report, “The Quest for Quality” when it aired earlier this week, you can view it in its entirety on Sunday evening at 8:30 p.m., or you can view both segments online:

Watch Part 1: “What’s the Cost of Basic Education?”

Watch Part 2: “More Money or More Reform?”

For a summary of the program and links to related material, visit “The Quest for Quality” homepage.

Family Fun Night - thanks for joining us!

Wow - we had about 150 folks at Fun Night last night, from toddlers to adults. Thanks to all for coming out to this free event, sponsored and staffed by your PTA.

We underestimated the amount of food so please join us again in the future. We'll have more food on hand for the tacos-in-a-bag, I assure you! It seemed like the deejay and activities were a hit. Let us know your feedback so we can plan similar events in the future.

These events are generally sponsored by PTA and they will be free when we have them. Occasionally, we will ask for donations of food or other items for local food and clothing banks, to help those in need.

Thanks very much to:

• Rich, Mt. View night custodian for his hours of helping us set up and clean up!
• Trish for allowing us easy access to kitchen facilities
• Shawn for running some fun activities in the gym
• Karen for allowing PTA to borrow many of her PE items, including hula hoops and jump ropes
  
• Tony and his son for providing deejay services at a PTA-friendly price!
• Teri, Jodi, Heather and Tabitha for working in the kitchen!
• Keli, Laura and Tara-Lyn for volunteering their time and energy!
• Sabrina and Kevin for your advice, time and support!
• Jeremy "JJ" for your unsolicited help, especially with clean-up!
  

Please understand that these events are fully funded by PTA. The entertainment and food are purchased by PTA, which is why we do charge a nominal fee for the food and drink so as not to absorb too much of a financial loss.

We sponsor these events in the hopes that you enjoy them, have a frugal evening of entertainment, meet friends and all in a safe environment.

Thanks for supporting Mountain View and your PTA!

If you ever have questions about PTA or comments/constructive criticism about how to improve Fun Nights and other events, please contact PTA President Brian Morgan.

Are you a registered volunteer?

Do you want to volunteer at school and/or PTA events? If you haven't done so already, please fill out the volunteer application (link here) so that your background check can be completed by the school district.

Thanks for volunteering!

If you were a volunteer last year (2008-2009) and filled out this form last year, you're still on the volunteer rolls through the 30th of September.

Here's a link to the form in Spanish, too!

If you have questions about volunteering at Mountain View, please contact Volunteer Coordinator Jodi Boutin.

If you have questions about PTA, please contact PTA President Brian Morgan.

Fun Night w/DJ this Friday!

Come join us for the 1st PTA Fun Night of the year at Mountain View Elementary!

Friday, September 25 6-8 p.m. Cost? FREE!

The always popular and ever-famous Tacos-in-a-bag will be available for sale in the cafeteria. Island DJ Productions is back and going to keep the kids hopping for a few hours!

And if you haven't joined PTA or bought your Mountain View t-shirt or sweatshirt, you can join, buy one or more shirts or order them.

All kids MUST be accompanied by an adult - please do NOT drop off your child and leave! School dress code applies...

Questions? Contact PTA President Brian Morgan (360-970-9513).