Box Tops for Education – Earn Money For Your Schools!

Box Tops for Education! You know those little Box Top symbols you see on so many every day products? Well, I’ve been collecting those things for almost 2 decades, even before I had kids of my own. I collected them for nieces, nephews and cousins even though I never quite understood how they worked. Although those cuties are all grown up now, I have children of my own and have continued cutting, collecting and passing them on to their schools. Now we have grandparents, aunts and uncles collecting for US!

General Mills started in this wonderful program in 1996 that helps our schools across the country. Box Tops for Education makes it easy to give back to schools on your every day purchases. Simply look for the Box Tops label, clip, save and pass along to your schools of choice. Schools will receive $.10 for every box top you clip/save/send and can earn up to $20,000 a year!Here are a couple quick tips that will save your PTA and parent volunteers a world of time and effort:

1. Cut as close as you can on the Box Top dotted line. They need to be precise to be submitted. Otherwise they will have to be trimmed by a wonderful, devoted volunteer.
2. Make sure they aren’t expired.

I headed out to my local Neighborhood Market Walmart to do a little shopping for this post:

If you’re like me, you might have wondered if collecting these really make a difference for your school.  Believe it or not, they really do! Little Sis’ elementary school earned about $2600 last year and $25,000 total in the almost 10 years it’s been open. That’s not shabby at all! Just think of some of the wonderful things this money could do for you school! For example, there’s new technology equipment, playground equipment and/or improvements, a school garden, outdoor learning areas, fresh coat of paint and/or murals for their hallways, classroom supplies/necessities, books, just to name a few.

How each school/PTA chooses to utilize these earnings will differ but it’s all accomplished by the same simple task of clipping these little gems! Who knew that it can make that much of a difference? To see how much your school’s earned over the years, just click here: Box Tops for Education School Earnings.

I have to say, I was a little disappointed to see that earnings at our school have been steadily declining over the past 4 years so it’s my hope to spread awareness and get those numbers back up! To be honest, I’ve been a little lazy about clipping them over the past couple years, so you can bet that not a single Box Top will be escaping our scissors here on out! Especially since we have a hungry mouth to feed now…

And just because you may not have a school aged child in the family doesn’t mean you can’t still participate! Collect them and send them to relatives, friends, or just turn them into your nearest school – they will be so appreciated!

Why not make collecting Box Tops more fun by adding a craft that can get kids involved in saving for their school as well!? There’s a huge sense of pride and accomplishment when they can bring their collection into their teachers during school-wide Box Top competitions to help their class win that pizza party or simply bringing them in when the jar is full. Or monster, in this case!

To make this, we simply used the box from one of my purchases, the taco kit in this case, glued some construction paper onto it, cut a hole and had some fun.

I used to save my Box Tops in just an envelope, but then I got lazy and didn’t feel like opening up the flap to put my Box Tops in each time, lol, so I cut a slit in the top of a baby food plastic container and made a little storage box. You can also stuff ’em in a lidless canning jar or make this Box Top-eating monster. It really doesn’t matter how you collect them, as long as you collect them!

And of course I have to show you a lunch I put together with my purchases. Last night’s dinner turned into today’s lunches along with some sides. Make your own tacos at school!

That’s it!

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