February/March Newsletter

Endeavor Hall Volunteer Organization

February/March 2013

Hello EH families!

We hope that 2013 has been a great year so far for you!  We continue to have fun things in the works for the school and hope that you are looking forward to them also.  Thank you for being such wonderful and supportive families!

Upcoming Events
SEP Conferences: February 27 and 28, 2013.
Literacy Week: March 11-15, 2013, “Reading Helps Me Travel The World” We have Thal Dixon and Jim Hawkes with Grumpy Publications doing an assembly for the K-3 grades on Tuesday, March 12th and Brenton Barwick doing an assembly for the 4-7 grades on Thursday, March 14th.  We will be holding a reading competition with rewards for the class in each grade that reads the most minutes for the week.  Chick-Fil-A Spirit Night: March 19, 2013, Chick-Fil-A, Jordan Landing. 20% of purchases with a flyer this night will go towards the school!
Spring Safety Fair: April TBD
Quarterly VO Meeting: April 9, 2013 5-8 PM, Culvers, 3407 South 5600 West, West Valley.  10% of total sales this night will go towards the school!
Teacher Appreciation Week: May 6-10, 2013
Author Night: May 17, 2013
Field Day: May 29, 2013

Volunteers Needed
Writer in Residence is one of the innovative programs at Endeavor Hall.  As part of this program, nationally published authors are frequently at the school working with the students.  We are in need of volunteers to help while the authors are here.  This will provide you the opportunity to work with your students’ grades and with some of our wonderful authors.  More than two volunteers are always welcome, though we can make do with two in each class.  The more responders, the more attention and response each student receives--plus it gives experience to parents in how to respond constructively to their kids' writing.  If you would like to volunteer to help with this, please sign up here:  www.SignUpGenius.com/go/5080F44AEAF28A46-writer or contact Debbie Domenici at DebraDomenici@gmail.com or 801-634-5557.  The current dates and times we are in need of volunteers are:
2/26/13 10:00 am-12:30 pm 1st grade
2/28/13 10:00 am-12:30 pm 1st grade
3/1/13 12:30 pm-2:30 pm 1st grade
3/5/13 10:00 am-12:30 pm 3rd grade
3/7/13 10:00 am-12:30 pm 3rd grade
3/8/13 12:30 pm-2:30 pm 3rd grade
3/12/13 10:00 am-12:30 pm 2nd grade
3/14/13 10:00 am-12:30 pm 2nd grade
3/15/13 12:30 pm-2:30 pm 2nd grade

SEP Conference Lunches:  We will be providing lunch to feed our wonderful teachers prior to their conferences February 27th and 28th.  Our wonderful parent volunteers, Lane Poulson and Erin Winkler have planned these lunches.  If you are able to provide any of these items, please sign up at http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080F44AEAF28A46-teachers.  You will receive an email to remind you.  Thank you so much for your help!

Book Fair:  We hold a Scholastic Book Fair twice a year along with the SEP Conferences.  It is time for our final Scholastic Book Fair for the year and we need volunteers to help us.  If you are available to help, please go to  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/409054DACA92AAB9-february and sign up.  If you can't use the online sign up, you are welcome to contact our wonderful parent volunteer, Christy Richards, at 801-982-0868 or mchristyr@gmail.com.  If you can sign up, but not for a block listed, you can sign up for the one closest and just use the comment section to indicate what time you are available.  You may purchase Scholastic Books at the school or go online at http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/endeavorhall and place an order starting February 13. There is also a link on the book fair website for volunteers, as well as the schedule for the fair.

Volunteer Service Incentives!
Unlike some schools, we do NOT require a certain number of parental service hours, but we do need parental involvement to keep it going at its best. Please remember that any volunteer hours that you put in at the school or from home need to be documented in the volunteer sign-in binder in the front office so that you receive credit!  If you have past volunteer hours, please log them in with the office so that you can receive credit for them.  This includes helping at VO events, school events, in-class volunteering assistance … any help that benefits the school!

We previously provided reserved seats at the holiday program or reserved parking spaces for some of our parents. We want to clarify that these were based on the time that has been recorded at the school. Those who had two or more hours of recorded volunteer time were offered the reserved seats at the holiday programs or a reserved parking space after school. One seat or one parking space was offered for each two hours of service.  Time used for these items has been deducted from your total hours of service to be used towards future events.

Our current volunteer incentive is first pick for SEP Conference times for those who put in three hours of volunteer service.  The school will be notifying you shortly if you are part of this incentive and will give you instructions on how to schedule your appointment.

Later in the year, we will also be offering reserved seats for the spring concert and other incentives so please make sure that you are recording all service time with the office!

Fundraising

Tile Fundraiser:  We are currently holding the final fundraiser for the year.  A letter and brochure have been emailed and sent home explaining this fundraiser.  We are raising funds to purchase the tiles that will be the surface of the playground.  Each tile sells for $35.  As you know, we set a goal at the beginning of the year to raise $10,000 for the playground. This fundraiser is helping us to add to the funds raised during the Carnival at the beginning of the year.  As of February 24th we have raised $7,040.38 of this.  That is about 70% of our goal!  We need to raise another $2,959.62 to reach our goal!  That equals 85 tiles!  Donations can be turned into the front office or into the VO Board Members.  We will also have collection boxes at our upcoming Spirit Nights.  Please let us know if you have any questions at DebraDomenici@gmail.com.  Please remember to contact your employers, family, friends and businesses about donating to this great cause!  

Other News
Cinch Sacks and Water Bottles:  We still have EH cinch sacks and water bottles available for sale.  These are very nice and good quality materials, and can be used often in your students classrooms. The teachers would love to have students leaving their classrooms less often to visit the drinking fountain, and another reusable bag (or several) to keep handy are always useful at home or school!  You may purchase cinch sacks for $10 each and water bottles for $5 each.  If you are interested, please notify us at DebraDomenici@gmail.com and we can arrange to get these to you.  We will also have these available at our Spirit Nights for purchase.  The money from these sales also goes towards the playground!

Facebook: We have two Facebook pages that you can visit to get up to date information about upcoming events and incidents at the school. Please “Like” the following pages to stay informed:  Endeavor Hall and Endeavor Hall Eagle Power.

Wishing you a sweet February and a beautiful March 2013!
Debbie, Anna, Jeanette, Stephanie, and Juliet
Endeavor Hall VO Board 2012-2013