We have a number of fun family events planned this year! We hope you will support us with your generous donations and your involvement in our wonderful school.

Don’t forget all the ongoing ways you can support this wonderful school:

• Amazon.com If you make your purchases via our website portal Sierra earns a commission. Shop and support the school, how easy is that! More details are listed below!
  
  
• Recycle grocery bags. Did you know that Sierra earns $5 every time we fill the Wal-Mart recycle bag container, located in the front office. Bring in those white plastic grocery bags, do your part for the planet and let Wal-Mart raise funds for our school. For more information check our Wal-Mart recycling page
  
  
• Box Tops.  Another easy fundraiser - just cut out the coupons from General Mills products and drop them in the box in your child’s class. For more formation check out our Box Tops page
  
  
• ESCRIP. Remember to register your cards today, participating business partners contribute a percentage of your grocery loyalty cards, credit card, and debit/ATM card purchases to Sierra Elementary. More details are listed on our eScrip page.
  
  
• SCRIP, SCRIP and more SCRIP, easy on line ordering now available at our website under Fundraising. More details are listed below as well as on our SCRIP page.

The 6th grade field trip to Sly Park is planned for the week of October 5-9, 2009. The cost will be approximately $280 per student, which covers food, lodging, transportation and activities for five days. If you'd like to learn more about Sly Park and its program, please take a moment to check out their website at www.scoe.net/slypark/

To help spread this cost, we have put together a payment plan as detailed below, you can use a credit card to pay for the Sly Park trip via the PayPal service.

Payment Plan

April 30th $50 Deposit  
Note: Deposit’s are fully refundable prior to August Payment

May 29th  $50 Deposit

Aug 31st  $100

Sept 18th $80

We'll be having Family Science Night, Wednesday May 20th from 6:30-8:00 pm. Come on out and be a part of this fun, family FREE event! We have some amazing discoveries in store so don't miss out on all the fun

Did you miss it? Or maybe your little shark forgot to bring it home? Click here to check out the latest edition of our Shark Bytes Newsletter online

As with last year we will present only the most effective fundraisers this year. Many of you liked the option of a one-time tax-deductible cash donation to help keep our school among the very best in the region. This program is available again this year. Our goal, with your continued support, is to raise approximately $40,000 which breaks down to $89.00 per child.

Where will the money go? The majority of this money will be allocated to the following programs:

• Teachers' Classrooms (supplies, books, etc.)
• Primary Years Programme (PYP) - our new IB Programme: www.ibo.org/pyp
• Art Docent (supplies)
• Science Docent (new program supplies)
• Garden Curriculum
• Accelerated Reading (A/R) Quizzes (annual maintenance cost)
• Playground Equipment
• Resource Library (purchase of specialized group reading books)

Sierra has a great opportunity to make additional funds at no additional cost to the school or the families that participate in the scrip program.

What is Scrip?
Sierra buys Scrip (gift cards) from Great Lakes Scrip Center. This is a company that has made agreements with many retailers to purchase their gift cards at a discounted price. Each retailer has agreed to sell their gift cards for a certain price and in turn Sierra gets to purchase the gift cards from the Scrip center at a discounted price. Sierra then sells the gift cards for the face value to the families. Sierra makes money by selling these gift cards for the price they are worth and keeping the difference for the school.

Why buy Scrip?
Most people think that you only would purchase gift cards if you were giving them away as a gift. This is not true. Many families purchase the gift cards for their own personal use. They use them for the weekly shopping at Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Safeway, etc. They are useful when filling up the family car at AM/PM, Shell, Chevron, etc. They come in handy when you go to dinner at Applebee's, Chili’s, Claim Jumper, and Cheesecake Factory plus many more.

How to place a Scrip order? Log onto shopwithscrip.com you will need to register. This is free. When you register your family you will then have access to use the shopwithscrip.com shopping page anytime. You need to make sure to choose Sierra Elementary as your school of choice. We have a school access code. This code is 67217E8F12L12. Once you do this you are ready to shop. After you place a scrip order, the coordinator will process your order. The order usually takes a few days to ship out and get entered into the computer. Once that is done the scrip is ready for pick up.

How to pay for your scrip? You can pay for scrip a number of ways. You can prepay online and then you do not have to worry about getting money to the coordinator. You can pay with a check made out to Sierra Elementary PTC. Cash works just as well. Also, we may next year start taking Paypal. Payment for scrip is due when your order is placed. You may always leave your payment in an envelope marked for the scrip coordinator at the office.

Click here to purchase Scrip online
Click here for more information about Scrip or to download an order form

This year we are continuing to partner with Amazon.com to help raise funds for our school without any additional cost to you. For any of your Amazon.com purchases simply visit our shop Amazon.com link and make your purchases as usual. Checkout is still via you secure Amazon.com account and a portion of your purchases will be donated back to the school! You can also click straight through from any of the links on this page and we'll receive credit for your purchases!