Updates from the PTA President

Greetings to all Hanawalt families!! I covered a lot of the basics in the welcome letter that was on every student’s desk for Meet the Teacher Night. This can also be found on the blog below this newsletter. One additional bit of information is we would like to encourage everyone to use the mailbox outside of Mrs. Looney’s room for PTA correspondence-this will lessen the load on the front office and keep all PTA business to one receptacle. Please remember to put your correspondence, money, box tops & soup labels in an envelope or zip baggie—anything that goes in the mailbox should be bagged and labeled to its recipient!! We have no way to keep it straight otherwise and it is almost impossible to have it be credited or answered in a timely manner.

Which brings us to box tops and soup labels….we are going to collect these again this year! Jennifer Carstens has generously agreed to head up these programs and is looking for a few helping hands to cut and paste labels. This is a super job that can be done from home if you still have little ones around and it’s not easy for you to volunteer at up at school. PLEASE deposit your labels in an envelope already trimmed, this saves our volunteers so much time! I keep an envelope on the side of my refrigerator and trim as I go so when the envelope is full I have the boys take it to school and put it in the mailbox. This is a great one for grandparents to be involved with as well—just ask them to clip and save then add them to your stash!!

Now for my BIG plea: We desperately need someone to step up as the coordinator of Hanawalk-Fall Fest. We have many of the pieces in place and a good start with committee members, as well as a template of how it’s been run in the past and some changes set for this year. Are you the person who will take charge and coordinate all the pieces? Without Hanawalk many of the programs our students enjoy throughout the year would not be possible. Currently Hanawalk-Fall Fest is scheduled for Friday, September 25, 2009 and will coincide with our Fall Book Fair.

Don’t forget to attend the first PTA general meeting on September 10, 2009 at 6:30 pm in Mrs. Carpenter’s room. Our guest speaker of the night is pediatrician and Hanawalt dad, Dr. Pete Hetherington; he will talk to us all on the H1N1 virus and what we need to know to keep our kids safe.

Until then: "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these".

-George Washington Carver

I hope everyone is off to a great and successful year and if throughout the year you need anything please feel free to give me a call at 252-1787 or drop me an email at Cheryl@tasty-treats.com.