Do Any Grocery Shopping Lately?

This is going to sound a little odd.  But...

If you happen to shop at any of the grocery stores listed below, and want to help The Peanut's school, please read on.  (Or if you just have kids or grandkids who attend schools who could use some extra equipment or supplies at school, read on, too.)

I bring this up, btw, because I've gotten more than a few e-mails from folks who wanted to help out with some fundraising or with a library donation and whatnot to The Peanut's school.  This seemed like an easy way to do that -- for her or for any kids in your life whose school could use a boost.

Since The Peanut's school started having a rocky road in the past year due to roofing and structural problems brought on by our horrid last year's winter, it's been tough going financially.  We've managed to get the immediate structural issues under control, at least it seems so anyway.  But we are still working on projects to fix up the things that need further repair while still trying to keep upkeep and progress going on the academic and activity side of things inside the school, too.

Trying to balance everything when budget money is tight is not so easy.  So the parent's organization at school has been working hard to help raise funds and do extra where we can.

Which is where this post comes into the picture.


I'm helping to coordinate Campbell's soup label collections for the school.  With these, we get points which accumulate to a level where we can order free academic supplies, musical instruments, playground and gym equipment, audio visual tools, and even computers.   For stuff a lot of people use regularly anyway.  (For me, it's Swanson's broth -- we use it a lot for cooking here, and I save the labels along with soup, Goldfish crackers and a number of other participating product UPCs.)

They've started something new for folks to be able to participate without even having to clip labels and send them to school.  It's hooked into those "shopper"cards that grocery stores use for internal discounts -- since I use one at my local Kroger store, I signed up and, lo and behold, the school's account gets credited for purchases AND I can clip the labels and get a twofer on the points.  Woo hoo!

If you happen to shop at any of the following stores and use their shopper's card, you could easily do the same:

Supermarkets: Kroger, Ralph's, Dillons, Smith’s, King Soopers, Fry’s, QFC, City Market, Hilander, Owen’s, Jay C, Pay Less, Baker’s, Gerbes, Safeway, Carrs, Dominicks, Genuardis, Pavilions, Price Chopper, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Shoprite and Vons.

Multi-department stores: Fred Meyer, Fry’s Marketplace, Smith’s Marketplace, Kroger Marketplace, Dillon’s Marketplace

Here's how you do this:  go to the Campbell's e-Labels for Education website, sign up for an account by plugging in the number of your local store's shopper's card, and then select the school to which your points will be credited.   In The Peanut's case, you'd search for Clarksburg, WV, and then look for St. Mary's Elementary -- it's pretty easy.

Then every time you purchase a participating product, the shopper card account will automatically credit that purchase as a point for the Campbell's Labels for Education account for the school you choose. 

It's a little "Big Brother," I know.  But I figure if it gets an extra laptop or some art supplies for my child's school when the grocery card was already tracking my purchases anyway?  So be it.

If you have kids/grandkids/neighbor kids that could benefit from this, too, the cool thing is that you can split your points collection across multiple schools.  I thought that was a nifty way for grandparents with grandkids at several schools -- or parents with kids of several ages and thus in different schools -- to really help out everyone.

I put together a flier to go out to parents at the start of school about signing up for this, and I thought some folks in other parts of the country might want to know about this for schools their kids attend.

Thanks mucho in advance to anyone who signs up for The Peanut's school.  And, frankly, thanks in advance for signing up to help any school because, in this tight budget economy, every school I know of needs all the help it can get right now.