Recent Fundraisers:

o Flower Power
o Chuck E Cheese
o Prince Pizza
o Spring Dance
o All the ‘days’ (sunglasses, slippers, etc.)
o Bake sale

All told these raised over $1,000.

*******

Upcoming events include:

o The Barnes and Noble Bookfair on May 24th.  We need readers!
o Clean up day on Sept 15th.
o Auction – we are aiming for November 3rd
o Planning on a Carnival mid September
o B&N again in the fall
o Chuck E Cheese/Wendy’s Dine Out Nights during the summer

*******
Kaboom!

Good news!  We've made it to the next round in the Kaboom! video competition.  Now is where YOU come in!  We need people to sign up with Kaboom! 
  • Go to www.ourdreamplayground.org
  • Click on the 'Sign Up' in the upper right hand corner.
  • Make sure to find our project to attach yourself to
  • Once you have done this, you'll need to go back in and Edit your Profile and add a picture if you are joining one of the 'teams'.
The more people willing to join teams, the more points for us!
Please sign up your spouses too.

Some people have been trying to join as "team members" and not just as volunteers.  When you get to the screen that says "Volunteer -Lend a Hand to a Project near you" - you have the option to either RSVP for the build day, or Join the planning committee. If you Join the planning committee, you will put on a team, and automatically put in for the build day. If you just rsvp you are not on a team.

Please let Devin know if you get error messages, she can pass them on to Kaboom!

 
NEWS

We submitted a video to Kaboom for a grant contest. .  The video has been submitted and the documents gathered- Fingers crossed that we will make it to the next round!

In early June, they will pick the top 10 videos (criteria includes interesting video, $$$ need, community support among others).  These will then be posted for 2 weeks of voting. The top 5 videos after the voting will win $15K towards their project.  If you are interested in learning more, check out Kaboom.org

We also had an article about the playground in the Peabody Weekly News.  Hopefully that will help us get some publicity!  It is a great article, though they cut out mention of PTC and how supportive they have been of all our efforts.  Thanks PTC!

Finally we had a Spring Dance- we made over $160 for the playground with raffles and friendship bracelet sales.  Thanks to all who helped.


UPCOMING EVENTS

Playground meeting @ 6pm & Dine Out Night at Wendy's on Rt. 1 from 5-8pm on 5/21.

Barnes and Noble Bookfair on Thursday 5/24- books/games/food purchased all day long can go towards our fundraiser, we'll have activities and story time from 3:30-8, and the online purchasing is open until May 29th.  If anyone has face painting talents or would like to help at Barnes & Noble in any way - reading stories, crafts etc - please let Devin know!


 
  • There is the possibility of gift wrapping for donations at the mall before Mothers/Fathers day.  More information will be forthcoming if/when this develops

  • The group of Endicott College students who will be working with the committee came for their first meeting.  They will come to the April meeting with logo/branding/solicitation ideas, and maybe even a video.

  • The Philanthropy Team part of our committee has already been meeting with Dr. Nappi.  Grant applications are in progress.

  • There have been many questions floating around drop off etc. about what our goal is.  Please talk up these two pieces of information to anyone who is asking:
What is the target date?  Spring 2013
How much money is needed?  At least $75,000.

  • Look for a Playground newsletter soon.  We are just waiting & trying to finalize certain details before that happens.

These next 12 months should be our big push.

  • It was discovered that the Committee can use the Welch School Nonprofit #: which means we don’t have to wait for the 501c3 status to go through! (official US Nonprofit Status).
  • The Upcoming meetings will be April 9th and May 21st.

A number of Committee members also brought in ideas and even examples for fundraisers.  Thank you to each of them.
 
The Playground night at Kelly's was a great success.  Thank you to all who attended. 

Also, remember that  we will have a playground meeting on Monday, January 23rd at 6:30 pm in the library.

Please let Ms. Rozanky know if you plan to come, so we are sure we have enough refreshments!
 
Tonight is our first organizational meeting - please come to hear about the plan, and to volunteer!