Smart & Final - California Milk Advisory Board Campaign #SmartFinalSupportsSoCalSchools

I was so excited when I was selected to be a Smart & Final Ambassador for their California Milk Advisory Board “Help Our Teachers, Help Our Kids” campaign. Milk is a pretty big deal in our house. I typically buy at least 2 gallons of milk every week as well as sour cream, cheese and ice cream. I recently found out that there are dairy farms in every state in the country. Everyone in the U.S. has access to fresh dairy products. In California, we know when we are choosing a product made in California due to the California Dairy Seal that is on California-produced milk products.

The California Milk Advisory Board has launched a new campaign and Smart & Final is helping promote it. “Help Our Teachers, Help Our Kids” is a program where students and families collect Real California seals from First Street products purchased at Smart & Final. Each seal counts for one sweepstakes entry and the teachers who submit 100 seals get 25 Scholastic books or a $25 school supply gift card. Every teacher who enters also gets one Scholastic book. The program runs from October 1, 2011 - ~~December 31, 2011~~ November 30, 2011 and entries must be submitted by January 31, 2012.

The California Milk Advisory Board will announce the winners in February, but Smart & Final is so awesome that they’re doing a separate sweepstakes! Entrants who go to FirstStreetSupportsSoCalSchools.com and tell why their Southern California school should win will be entered to win $500, $300 or $200 to be donated to the school of their choice EVERY MONTH! That’s right, there will be a total of NINE winners, 3 per month, from those that enter at the site. For some schools, this money could mean a huge difference.

I spent my childhood attending public schools and I never thought twice about my own children attending public schools. I learned so much… music, art, theater, band. I assumed my children would have the same experience. Unfortunately, I’m a little disappointed. We all know how much funding has been cut from our schools, but I look at other public schools, even ones close to me, and I wonder why MY school isn’t providing the same opportunities as others. I know the money isn’t there. I get that. But, still… I wonder WHY it isn’t there?

We hear every day about the importance of education. We also hear every day about low performance schools, teachers unions, tenure, overcrowding. Our children are suffering. My children have no music program. There is no band, no instruments, no choir. My children do art projects within their classroom. There is no art teacher or formal program. The only reason we have minimal physical education classes is because our school applied for a special grant to have one PE teacher provide classes to an entire school. It’s not enough.

A school not too far from ours is teaching other languages and how to play musical instruments. Why not our school? I want to do whatever I can to try and provide these extra curricular (and important) activities for my kids. That’s why I love that Smart & Final is trying to help us out as well.

To help our school out with the collection process, I used all my craftiness to create a box for all the California Real Milk Seals they’ll be collecting. It all started with a plain white picture box.

Plain white picture box.

I took a white picture box and decided I needed a cow-themed collection box to gather all the California Real Milk seals.

I bought 1/4 yard of printed fabric and just glued it to the sides of the box.

The bottom fabric was glued to the bottom of the box and the remaining top fabric was glued on the inside of the box. I used Elmer’s Glue and it worked perfectly.

I covered the top of the box with black construction paper and printed out the Real California Milk seals to glue to the top of the box. In the center, I cut a small slit where the seals can be inserted.

Completed Box

I really love how the box came out. I think it will stand out really well. I’m excited that my kids’ school is already on board with saving the California Real Milk seals. My daughter, Amanda, decided that she really wanted to have the box in her classroom since the class was outgrowing the tiny paper box they had.