Thanks to all of you who have voted and are voting (again, you can vote once a day and voting is open until June 22).  We are currently in third place! 

That's a great job, but we can't let success go to our heads- keep voting, keep telling more people, and ask those close to you to post it on THEIR Facebook wall.

I'm going to keep this simple.  If you are reading this blog you care about getting Welch kids a new playground.  And so, you need to go here and vote.  Every day.  You can vote once a day until June 22nd.

For right now, it is only available to those of you with Facebook.  But, of course, Facebook is free to get.  While I stop short of suggesting that you get Facebook JUST for this contest, you wouldn't lose any money doing it, at least.

There are 10 videos.  5 will be chosen for $15K grants. 

Now get out there and VOTE!  (And tell your friends, family, and anyone else you know who might vote).

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!

Check out this article on Boston.com which mentions the Playground Committee along with other Peabody volunteers.  Good work, team!

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!

Coming up on Monday May 21st there will be 2 events - the Playground com. meeting at 6pm which will be held at Wendy's because we will also be having a dine out night!

Please come have dinner and join us for the meeting - support the playground in two ways!

Wendy's Dine out nights are Friday (5/18) or Monday (5/21):  5-8pm both nights.

Hope to see you there!

Sorry- typo there- tonight's meeting is of course April 23 at 6pm.

Just a quick reminder that the Plgrd. Com. has a meeting on Monday, May 23rd.  That would be tomorrow.

6:30pm @ Welch School Library.

Hope to see you there!

We are currently doing a really great fundraiser through a group called Flower Power.  The link to "our" fundraiser is:

http://www.flowerpowerfundraising.com/campaign?campaign_id=11214

This only runs until Midnight on 4/27 so get on it quick if you're interested!

The great thing with this is that we get 50% of the sales!  Also, in a more personal way, it's cool because as a thank you to our organization, no matter how much you order, shipping is only 5 dollars.

If you'll be buying plants for yard & garden anyway this year, please consider this alternative.  While we are always in favor of supporting local businesses, in this case, this company is being incredibly generous doing this fundraiser along with us.

Thanks for reading, and remember that anyone reading this is welcome to come to the next meeting of the playground committee on April 23 at Welch School.