Give them to someone whose school collects them

I give them to a neighbor whos children collect them for school.

I'm going out on a limb here, so please don't take this as a flippant, snarky, judgmental comment, since it's not intended to be - but just an observation because of what those box tops represent in my world - as a person who teaches food and nutrition classes. Consider this "food for thought", a lightbulb going off, so to speak, and an option you probably didn't consider.

Avoid eating these highly-processed boxed foods and you won't need to deal with box tops anymore. It will also cut down on waste - trash/recycling - and it may even improve your general health, or help avoid bad health in the future. The reality is, most "convenience" foods can be made at home using wholesome food choices, and usually cost less.

Headlines (I share these in classes I teach):

"Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods To Autoimmune Disease"

"9 Ways That Eating Processed Food Made the World Sick and Fat "

"Processed foods linked to increase in obesity and cancer"

"Food Additives That Cause Chronic Disease"

"Sodium's Role In Processed Foods" from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/salt/pdfs/Sodium_Role_Processed.pdf

Grainlady, some items like canned no salt green beans have them. I dont go out of way to get items w/ box top labels but when I do I give to my neighbors whose kid can buy baseball uniforms with them (I think). Easy painless way to earn neighbor goodwill but you are absolutely right that labels are found on many foods which are not the best choice, plus I notice they typically cost more

Grainlady, the box tops also come on the Kleenex brand tissues and cooking bags, both of which we use. I mail them to a friend in another state who is a teacher.

Grainlady, I love you and have learned so much from you, but I'll bet that Audrey is grateful for any kind of convenience she can use. oooxxx

AAA, my neice used to email and ask everyone in her family to send her those little box top things, which her little boy collected for school. They were used to 'buy' things for the classroom. I could never help out, but that's what they're for.

Do you know any elementary school kids? I wonder if these are still used for that purpose?

What a successful though snaky marketing ploy. Those kinds of foods are exactly what has helped create the obesity and health issues seen in alarming rates in recent years.

Processed food.....I don't have any.....

My grandson's class at his school in Delaware collected these. If you don't find a neighbor, let me check with my daughter that has relocated to Yukon, OK and see if his new school also collects them.

"nicole___

Processed food.....I don't have any....."

We don't either, we get them off the top of the box of garbage bags, ziplock bags, Kleenex, Finish dishwasher detergent and many others.

Here's a list of the products they are on:

http://www.boxtops4education.com/earn/participating-products

A lot of my Box Tops come from Nature Valley Granola Bars, Cascadian Farm Organic Cereal, Green Giant Fresh produce, and Land O Lakes butter as opposed to Hamburger Helper or other "kit" foods.

Amazing Aunt Audrey, to find a school near you that collects Box Tops, just search using your zip code here: www.btfe.com The schools turn them in twice a year and get actual cash that they can then spend on anything the school needs -- playground equipment, curriculum materials, guest presenters, teacher training, band instruments, etc. Our local elementary school brings in about $5,000 every school year by collecting Box Tops.

The only place I find them are on my high fiber cereal, but I save them and give them to a friend with children who are school aged. Jewelisfabulous, nice link...thank you.

Funny how a question about school coupons was taken as an opportunity for a misplaced sermon.

If a person wishes to support a school, a noble view of course, two of the best ways are to offer to serve as a volunteer or to write the school a check. Clipping coupons and sending them in will only go so far. I can't imagine the money raised by any one school with 10 cent coupons could amount to much.

Public health officials and educators have identified processed food as a target, both as a way to get people to reduce their sodium intake and as a way to try to steer people to make better food choices. I agree with both goals but recognize there are occasions when a family's need for convenience may require less than optimal food choices. So long as there is awareness and such situations aren't frequent and habitual, no one is going to die from an occasional fast food meal or something out of a box.

<I can't imagine the money raised by any one school with 10 cent coupons could amount to much.>

Snidely, did you see that our local elementary school brings in $5,000 from Box Tops every year? That's sort of middle of the road in our area. There's a charter school on the opposite side of our state that brings in over $20k each year. Not too shabby at 10 cents per.

My view is that a program like this is a lot of people spending a lot of time for a small result.

$5,000 would be a very modest contribution from ONE local business - does the local elementary school have a program to solicit such contributions? That could be time well spent and might add up to a worthwhile amount of money from multiple sources.

$5,000 is less money than any public school in any state would get in added state funding by having ONE more student attending the school. It's not enough to pay for an additional aide in a classroom for more than a few months. Yes, it's better to have $5K than to be $5K short, I was only looking at the relatively small payoff from the effort.

A lot of school and church activities use these....please give them to someone to put to good use.

The elementary and middle schools around here collect them and also the Campbell's labels, They are brought to school by the kids and collected and handled by volunteer parents. As mentioned, you can get them off of healthy or non-food items also. I save and donate them. My contribution is probably only a few dollars a year. It's free money for the school so why not?

It's clear, snidely, that you have no experience with the box tops program since you believe raising the money takes too much effort for the result. It doesn't. Additionally, the costs associated are nearly nil.

And, you've clearly been out of the loop for a very long time since you think local businesses share your view that a $5k donation is "modest". That amount usually exceeds a local business' entire charitable budget for a year. And, it must stretch to handle requests from multiple schools and other needy organizations.

But, if you believe I'm wrong, I invite you to volunteer as fundraiser for your nearest school. It'll be a real education for you.

As with anything I relate about myself, it's 100% true and not embellished a stitch.

I spent many years on the Board of a large private school. I was also on the finance committee for the same number of years. Contributions, depending on the year and what was going on, were sometimes in excess of many hundreds of thousands of dollars and came from many different activities. As a school, we often wouldn't bother with many possibilities expected to produce funds in the low 5 figures because the time needed vs payoff potential made them not worthwhile. Contributions from businesses, often but not always affiliated with students' families, always totaled tens of thousands of dollars. When you need to raise money, you need to plan activities that will raise A LOT of money. If you aim for a little, you only get a little.

I have lots of experience funding schools and likely have spent more hours doing so than most parents. And I did so in a position to suggest, influence and help manage fundraising. .

Land-o-Lakes Butter is a Monsanto product. Therefore, Land-o-Lakes Butter = not a real food. Just sayin'.

imstillchloecat, can you please site your source for the Monsanto connection?

It's a cooperative owned by members - no apparent connection to Monsanto, a publicly traded corporation.

The US has almost meaningless regulation of the food supply but the use of certain words does come with requirements. Something labeled simply as "butter" must be made from bovine milk and what else can be added is very limited. Salt, perhaps nothing else. If other things are added, it needs to say "Butter with ........"

Snidely- no offense meant towards you but a private school, where the large majority of students come from wealthy families is NOT the norm for most of the country.

My kids go to a Title 1 school here in Texas. Title 1 basically means we have a large percentage of students who come from low income families. These people don't own businesses, they work blue collar or minimum wage jobs, their children have free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches.

Our PTA is the only organization that does any type of fundraising and it is threadbare.

The board members of PTA always come from the well to do families in our school and we spend a large amount of our own money to provide nice things for all of our students.

We ask local businesses (including many that are owned by the parents) to donate goods and services every year for the silent auction held during our fall carnival, our biggest fundraiser of the year. But it still isn't a lot.

Those low income families can't contribute much, but they CAN clip box tops and labels for education off of the items they already purchase and send them in to the school to help out and feel like they are contributing and we appreciate any amount we can get.

On a completely different note, I, and many of the other more well to do parents, really love our school and love that our kids aren't going to an exclusively "rich" school.

The rich kids and the poor kids all play together and get along quite well. There isn't some crazy disconnect between the different socio-economic classes.

Our districts borders are situated in such a way that we have some of the wealthiest families and the rest are basically trailer parks and yet, unless you were in the cafeteria during lunch and saw who got a free meal, you probably wouldn't be able to tell who's who.

I understand what you're saying and I'm not offended at all.

While I wouldn't describe it as a school of rich kids (there are other schools in the area of similar affiliation where that label is a better fit), it's true that more kids are from middle-class families (and some higher) than not. But about one-quarter of the kids receive partial and some even complete financial aid. Much of the fundraising is directed toward money for financial aid to low-income families. Students and families who are unable to pay tuition or make supplemental contributions are asked to donate "volunteer" hours (always done with dignity and without singling out anyone) so that they partially share the load. The "volunteers" whose arms are twisted often do tasks side by side with others doing the same work without an obligation to do so. The list of aid recipients is strictly confidential and no one outside the Board or the staff knows its contents.

Amazing Aunt Audrey you have good intent, and thank you!

a PS for adella's comment:

It's very nice of you to go through the trouble you do, I'm sure the school appreciates it. But imagine what would happen if that or any school or a PTA started an annual fund raising program aimed simply at raising cash. Public schools in affluent areas may have school foundations that do this, but it's not needed. You would be surprised at how much can result.

I had such an experience with a public charter school with more of a community reflecting cross-section of students. Its fund balances started slipping after several years of not doing any fundraising at all. A group of parents designed the right kind of program and approach and the needed money was raised and then some. Many people were willing to step forward and help but hadn't previously done so because they hadn't been asked.

https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/spotlight-land-o-lakes-doing-monsantos-bidding-ge-alfalfa 

http://www.examiner.com/article/anti-gmo-groups-call-for-boycott-of-land-o-lakes-for-secret-gm-seed-company 

http://news.monsanto.com/press-release/monsanto-and-land-o-lakes-announce-changes-dekalb-brand-forage-sorghum-and-sudax-produ

http://foodbabe.com/2014/01/20/is-butter-secretly-ruining-your-health/

Snidely -- Your experience is obviously in such niche areas that you can't relate to how most public schools in various parts of the country operate. These are schools that don't have the network or population to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't have the parent and business connections you are accustomed to working with to raise funds. If the situation you have dealt with was the case for most public schools, Box Tops would be out of business due to lack of necessity.

So come on down to the public schools in little towns in Missouri, Kentucky, and Montana or the inner city schools in large cities that don't have the privilege of boards made up of high income earners and don't have access to businesses willing or able to give thousands a pop. Tell us all about how the local Mom & Pop the kind of money you're used to dealing with. Tell us how we can host events that will raise six figures from a community that is, often times, barely scrapping by. Then, maybe, it'll be obvious that your "aim for a little, you only get a little" rhetoric stems from your ivory tower experience versus the reality most schools face every budget year.

In the meantime, there are thousands of schools across the country that are very grateful for the checks they receive twice a year from Box Tops, even if you consider what they earn to be chump change that's not worth your time.

I understand what you're saying. You told me I had no experience with school fundraising, I've pointed out that I do for both private and public schools.

Yes, the private school experience (a parochial school by the way, not an elitist private academy) was different from the situations you describe. I was simply trying to say that MY experience was that more fundraising is possible than many expect but unfortunately those in a position to do something about it often have no fundraising experience. A failed effort may teach the wrong lesson.

Take them to the closest PRIVATE school. The company ignores the exp. dates....

I mail mine to the local school. And since our governor doesn't think schools need money to operate and our legislature doesn't want to get the school budget done AGAIN this year, we'll take all the box tops we can get. It's LAW that they have to let the school districts know how much money they'll have in the next year's budget but what with vacations, political campaigns, voting "no" just to cause irritation, and not showing up for work, it will be another year when schools don't know how much money they'll get. I wonder how many politicians don't know how much their pay check will be until a year after they've "earned" it. Maybe because the "haves" don't have to worry about money? I wonder if I went door to door to the 6 businesses in town with my tin cup if every one would chip in a few thousand dollars.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/07/02/brandstad-education-funding-veto/29646047/

and:

K-12 SCHOOL FUNDING: Senate Democrats and House Republicans spent
most of the session deadlocked on school aid before reaching a
consensus to provide a base increase of 1.25 percent, plus an additional
$55.7 million in one-time spending, for an overall increase of about
2.62 percent for the upcoming academic year. Legislators did not approve
school spending for the 2016-17 academic year, which means the battle
over school funding will resume next session. Senate Files 171 and 172.

Our very small school of k-5, 96 students got 2 checks for Box Tops for Education in the past year totaling close to a thousand dollars. That money was greatly appreciated and helped fund the Father/Daughter dance, bought coats & boots for kids that needed them & allowed us to pay Children's Stage Adventures to come to our school. That's alot for very little effort, IMO.

How much money would be raised if parents were asked to pass up two Starbucks visits per month or one McDonalds visit per month, put the money that would have been spent into an envelope, and give it to the school at the end of the semester? Or if they asked for donations for the coats and boots? A problem in some public schools is that many parents who do have the means to contribute, even if modest amounts, feel that their "entitlement" to a public education means that nothing more in financial support should be expected of them.

State funding for education is a mess everywhere but so too is public education a mess in too many places. Too many systems are incompetently run and saddled with difficult situations to deal with. Too many problems to deal with and too many directions to point fingers.

When my kids were in elementary school (public), I was head of fundraising for several years. The box top program and a grocery receipt store program were able to fund additional library hours for our librarian, update technology in our computer lab and buy additional sports equipment for the PE department. Every little bit helps!

We don't have a Starbucks anywhere around here. It's a 12 mile trip to McDonalds. Our resident expert on everything knows all about your circumstances and knows you are doing everything wrong. If you run your life like he runs his, everything will be perfect. Just ask someone for the money.

So you live in a small town or rural area in a state with a low population and low density. That doesn't describe where or the circumstances of where most Americans live.

Neither McDonalds nor Starbucks represents the highest attainment of civilization, and I avoid both. My point was that most people have discretionary spending that they could alter, if they were asked to and wanted to, to give to a good cause.

I'm sorry about your feeling the need to carp. Disagree with me if you want but no need to make it personal. I share my experiences and my views, you should limit your comments to the same. I'd rather be thought of as a resident expert than as the village idiot, that's for sure. How about you?

I work in a special education center with students from 5-21 years of age and probably 75% of them live in foster care. We have a prom for the kids every other year and it is all paid from us being in programs for recycling ink cartridges, diaper packages, beauty supplies and .......boxtops. I would just like to say THANK YOU to everyone that sends boxtops to schools. Several years ago my daughter's class was trying to raise the most boxtops and several people on the KT sent me boxtops. Every little bit helps!

Snidely, some of the schools have attended do mixed fundraising. I'm always going to save my box tops because I always have. It's free money and doesn't cost me anything except time.

I'm not a fan of fundraisers where I have to buy something. I prefer to just donate money and I have done that even when there was something for sale. In the past, my husband had an employer that would match our cash donations. We would find specific needs and donate enough money that the school could do the entire project with the combination of our donation and the matching employer contribution. Not everyone can afford that or has employer support like we had. My kids went to the wealthier public schools in the area. Our friends in lower income areas did not have that kind of support. They had some horror stories about even trying to get enough money to throw a class party.

jewels,

Thank you!

BTW, how do I make a cash donation to your special education center?

Levy Special Education Center

400 Woodchuck St

Wichita Ks 67212

you can specify if you want it to go to a special program such as prom, basketball team( which has been very supported by a used sporting goods store), classrooms, etc. Thanks!

jewels, I'm consistent in responding to those who act as I suggested can be successful when I said "if an organization needs money, they should ask for it".

I'd like to send you some cash (no check, to maintain my anonymity), who should I address the envelope to so that it doesn't get pocketed? Or, is cash a bad idea (I'm thinking like $40).

Thanks for your work in this area.

I will send you a message Snidely

I'm particularly fond of the dance (prom). My daughter organizes a Sweetheart Dance every Valentine's Day for special needs kids and their siblings. I'll be making my donation to be used for Prom Day.

Thanks so much..Since I don't see a message button on your page, will you put "Unique Production" on your envelope and then it will go in my mailbox at school.

I will. It will be mailed Monday.