5th Grade Camp!!

This post falls into the "family fun" department, so if you are looking for a running post...I don't have one for ya today.

One of the super exciting things that has been going on around our house the past month is 5th grade camp preparation.  I dont' know who's more excited, me or Emma, about camp. I did not go to camp in 5th grade, Brian did. One thing I have noticed is that people have pretty strong opinions about whether or not to send your kid to camp for a week, and as with most parenting issues, feel free to share their opinion. So just for the record, if you have an opinion, great. Keep it to yourself. I'm not asking for your input, I'm telling you I dont' want it, so if  I see you and you still give me your thoughts, well, I will gladly give you my thoughts on how I feel about you feeling your opinion was so noteworthy that you had to share it.(Parents are crazy, who knew camp was so controversial??) In the end it was Emma's choice if she wanted to go or not, Brian and I remained neutral, but she's a good kid, makes good choices, and has my trust thus far so I have no worries about her going.

Moving on...Emma will soon be going to Camp Loma Mar for a whole week.  I am so excited for her! The location of this camp is amazing. The camp  is in the redwoods, but there are also oak forests, and the beach near by. It's located just down the road from Big Basin Redwood State Park. Daily activities include working in the garden, taking care of the farm animals, daily hiking from 9-3 (whoa), exploring tide pools, putting on skits, nightly campfire...it's like this camp was tailor made for our family!! She is going to have such a great time and I'm sure it'll end up being a highlight of her young life.

As a parent of a 5th grader, fundraising has been going on non-stop. This camp is not cheap at $26,000 for 2.5 5th grade classes to go for 5 days. (it's 2.5 because there are 2 full 5th grade classes and one 4th/5th split class) Yikes! That is just the upfront fee. So that means each student is paying $300 up front, but will be billed after camp for any remaining amount, and any additional expenses that come up, like busing the kids up and back which is around $4000 by itself.  In the meantime, each 5th grader has a camp account, and they are banking any money they raise this year to help pay for any after camp bill that comes in.

So, while I have managed to avoid all the PFC (like a pta but has more freedom to make and spend money any way they want w/o school board approval, ie installing ac last year and new play structures) drama and have not had the experience of chairing any fundraisers...my time had come.  I was asked to chair a Tahoe Joe's fundraiser. The good news was it was the first time our school had ever worked with Tahoe Joe's, so there was nothing for me to 'mess up' since I was determining how it all went. Of course I wanted it to be a success, so I've been a basket case for the past month trying to figure out ways to convince parents to by dinner tickets for $18 each that entitled them to one of 3 choices of dinner and they have to dine on Nov. 15th. 1,500 sales flyers, 1,000 total emails, and contacting 500 parents twice by phone (thank you, Michele).....I ended up with a decent amount of tickets sold and quite a  few 5th graders with a few more dollars in their camp accounts! I learned how to send/receive a fax (don't laugh, I've been a stay at home mom for almost 11 years now), how to use a Rizo machine (high speed copier), how to make flyers and where the school keeps it's paper and how to check out supplies, and a bit about the accounting process the school/PFC has in place.
Today was my official last day as I delivered the unsold tickets and a check to the restaurant manger and a receipt to our treasurer. (we sold the tickets for $18 with Tahoe Joe's getting $9.99 per ticket, and the school keeping $8 per ticket, which is a huge amount for a fundraiser, kids usually keep .50 to $1 on sold items)  All that is left is for people to show up on the 15th and eat.

I sort of love that everyone is so broke and scraping their pennies together and fundraising like crazy to make sure their kids can have this great experience.  Our family does not take week long vacations, and the past 2 years have been about getting by, so being able to help Emma get to do this means a lot, and it means a lot to her that she is getting to go.

She has one more week of school, then Thanksgiving break, then she's off to camp!
(spell check is not working, so go ahead and have a laugh at all my errors)