Parents to hold Holiday Market fundraiser for Valley Forge teachers
Published 8:06 am Wednesday, October 31, 2018
- Contributed Photo This is the first year for the Holiday Market, a fundraiser dedicated to raising money for the teachers in Valley Forge Elementary. Many teachers have to pay for expensive items like printers out of pocket.
Teachers often make personal sacrifices to enrich the education of their students as often as possible, but for many teachers in smaller schools, these sacrifices can include financial sacrifices as well. Some parents have decided it is time to ease that burden.
Hannah Hill and April Andrews saw the school’s need and decided they needed to help.
“We don’t carry as many students as schools like Hampton,” Hill said. “So we do not get as much funding from the state.”
They said the Holiday Market is going to be a series of vendors for people to purchase from, including crafts, foods and homemade goods. Their goal is to have 20 vendors sign up by the day of the event: November 3.
Andrews said the lack of funding requires many teachers to pay for materials they need out-of-pocket, including items like printers.
This is the duo’s first attempt at the Holiday Market, so the two months of preparation so far has been difficult, they said.
“We have been literally asking everyone we know,” Andrews said. “We started asking people on Facebook, and as we started to develop more, we have been getting more vendors to show up.”
She said they knew they were not going to get a lot of parent support, and would mainly need to rely on help from Valley Forge teachers.
“It is scary knowing we would not get much help from parents,” Andrews said. “It is possibly because this is new to Valley Forge and they simply do not know us.”
Hill said the group is looking to make “any kind of profit” on this first attempt, and future goalposts can be decided after this first run ends.
Despite the difficulty of securing financial assistance in this project, Hill said their support within Valley Forge Elementary has been successful.
“We have some great teachers,” she said. “Jamie Oliver has been our liaison in all this, and she has been excited and encouraging.”
Hill said everyone is invited to attend on Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., even those not attending Valley Forge. The event will take place at Valley Forge Elementary’s Gym.
“We want to see everyone come out and have fun,” Andrews said.
