Fall Carnival

Steele PTA Volunteer Opportunities

Contact any PTA officer or chairperson for more information about the activities listed below.

 

Fall Carnival

A family-friendly, community-focused fall carnival! Help is needed before the event to repair games, solicit donations, and bake a cake for the cakewalk, and during the event to set up, run the games, assist with our bike-a-thon and clean up.

Bookies Night

Buy books, games and puzzles at The Bookies bookstore just in time for the holidays. Proceeds fund literacy projects sponsored by the PTA. Help is needed with publicity, door prizes, refreshments, and setup.

Popsicle Social

This event occurs on the Friday before school officially starts. It is an opportunity for new and existing families and students to meet their classmates and teachers. Often, the teachers set up a location to have all their classroom students get together and meet each other.

Reflections Art Contest

Reflections is the National PTA Arts Recognition Program. Help is needed to collect entries the last week in November and display artwork at school in January.

Sally Foster Giftwrap Fundraiser

Sally Foster is a fundraising event that allows families and friends to purchase holiday gifts, books, games and wrapping items by paper sales or internet sales. Volunteers are needed to decorate the school, to publicize the fundraiser, distribute packets, catalogs and forms to each student and to log sales.

RIF - Reading is Fundamental

RIF is a national program that encourages children to read. The PTA purchases hundreds of books and every child is allowed to choose one book to take home and keep. Volunteers are needed to select and order books through RIF and display the books and maintain records of book selections.

Silent Auction

The silent auction is an annual event that helps to fund our Academic Development Fund. Subcommittee chairperson and committee members are needed for:

School Directory

Each year the PTA compiles and provides a directory of students and their addresses and phone numbers to the Steele community. Volunteers are needed to update the directory database each year.

Greening of Steele

No doubt you've seen the beautiful gardens, landscaping and bricks around school, as well as heard about the harvesting and cooking being done by the students in class. Volunteers are needed to help in the gardens, classrooms and during workdays (usually half days, after school) scheduled periodically to help maintain the beautiful grounds at the school.

PTA Newsletter Editor & Website Administrator

The PTA newsletter provides updates, reminders, and articles about all PTA activities, events, and fundraisers. Published monthly during the school year, the newsletter also includes updates from the school principal, PTA President and CSC President. The PTA website contains calendars, meeting minutes and agendas, copies of the newsletter and other information pertaining to PTA activities and events. Volunteers are needed to write articles and assist the editor of the newsletter.

Legislative Liaison

This person or group of people keep us up-to-date on education policy at the local and state level. They attend PTA day at the State Capitol, meet with legislators to learn about new education trends in Denver, Colorado and the country.

Hospitality

Do you enjoy baking? Or, perhaps you would rather help set up, serve refreshments, or clean up at one of our school functions. This is an occasional, low-time commitment way to support our school. The committee also needs help with Teacher Appreciation Week and a Faculty and Staff Appreciation Lunch, held around the holidays in November or December.

Audit Review Committee

Four to six people meet annually to review PTA expenses and receipts. People with an accounting background are a plus.

Enrichment & Assemblies

This committee helps sponsor educational and cultural events that broaden our children's' school day and unites the school community with fun evening events. Volunteer help is needed gathering and implementing new ideas to bring to Steele, e.g., performing arts and assisting at our annual Science Palooza family fun evening in the spring.

After School Programs

After-school enrichment includes classes such as art, Spanish, piano, Science Matters, drama, photography, chess, etc. Volunteers are needed to sponsor after school activities or classes. Volunteers are also needed to students get to the after school programs. Help is also needed researching other programs and coordinating registration.

Washington Park Home Tour  www.washparkhometour.org

Each spring 5 local homeowners open their homes to the community. Proceeds from ticket sales and corporate sponsors and advertisers benefit the school. The day of the tour requires almost 100 volunteers, but prior to the tour we need the following volunteers:

• Volunteer Coordinator: This person will help organize all the volunteers and assign duties.
• House Selection Committee: These volunteers will help select the homes in the East Washington Park area for the tour. A volunteer with an architecture/design background would be helpful, but not necessary.
• Poster and Flyer Distribution: These volunteers will coordinate distribution of advertising via flyers and posters in the East Washington Park area and beyond.
• Donations: These volunteers will solicit donation of goods and services for the tour.
• House Captains: These volunteers will work the entire day at one of the 5 houses on tour. Duties include working with the homeowner prior to tour day and coordinating the volunteer "house monitors" on the day of the tour.
• Parents with Printer Contacts: The greatest expense for the house tour is printing of our advertising materials. If you know a printer interested in providing services free or at a cut rate, let us know.
• Parents with Media Contacts: We are always looking for the right "connection" to publicize the house tour - if you have connections, let us know.

Other (Non-PTA) Volunteer Opportunities at Steele

Contact the school office for more information about the activities listed below.

Activity	Description
Destination Imagination	(Formerly "Odyssey of the Mind"), Spring. Volunteers are needed to coach a team of 5 to 7 students (1st - 5th graders) for this mind-challenging, great-fun team competition for kids. No experience is necessary and training is provided.
Community Service Project	Volunteer help is needed to research community service ideas that our students can be directly involved in. Previous and ongoing projects include: students at Steele correspond with pen pals at an elementary school in Bosnia (where our school secretary, Eldijana Bjelcic, was a teacher); the PTA donating money for school supplies that were sent to the school in Bosnia, and donating money to The Gathering Place in Denver and the DPS Outreach Program for homeless DPS students.
Lunchroom and/or Playground Monitor	Help keep lunchtime and recess happy and safe for our children. Volunteers are especially needed on Fridays. A great deal of learning takes place on the playground including playing with peers, negotiating and taking turns. Come have lunch with your child and then help supervise on the playground!
School Historian	Enjoy taking photos? We need someone to document all the great activities and events happening here at Steele.
Parent Education and Family Activities	The PTA welcomes ideas for guest speakers and/or discussion groups on various parent education topics. Steele PTA has hosted Family Square Dancing and International Potluck Dinners to bring together families for a relaxing, fun evening. Any other ideas for the PTA to pursue?
Office Helper	Assist the school office staff with clerical tasks - collating information for the Thursday folders, copying, filing, and organizing... Bring your coffee and have some fun. About 2 hours every other week.
Publicity/Marketing Coordinator	Help promote our school and its programs. Create a poster, develop a brochure, etc. Work with our principal to develop and implement ideas to increase public awareness of Steele.
Grant Writing	If you are interested in researching and writing grants for science, arts, music, technology and other programs, please let us know. This is an integral part of acquiring important resources for the school
Faculty and Staff Appreciation Week	May. Help plan events to honor our teachers and staff during Teacher Appreciation Week in May. Planning meetings will be held in March and April. Time commitment: 5 to 8 hours total.
9News Health Fair	Spring. Help plan the Health Fair, which is a great student event at school each year. Time commitment: 10 to 15 hours.
Science Fair	Spring. Help plan the Steele Science Fair to be held in the Spring. A separate flier is sent home in the Thursday Folders about this volunteer opportunity. If you didn't reply and are interested, here's a second chance to get involved. Time commitment: 10 to 15 hours.
Field Day Helper	May. Assist Tim Welch, our P.E. teacher, during this great event of athletic activities, which is loved by all the kids. Help is needed to set up and manage the popsicle stand.
Art Class Volunteer	Miriam Unger, our art teacher, welcomes volunteers to help with a special art project or show. A volunteer sign-up list is located outside her classroom.
Library Volunteer	Charles Leckenby, our Librarian, would really appreciate your help for book checkout, re-shelving, helping students locate books and resources, reading to classes and more...Stop by the library.
Music Volunteer	Jonathan Stumbo, our music teacher, has lots of ways you can help our music program - assisting with the band (especially if you can play an instrument), classroom assistance, accompanist for the choir...parents with or without musical background are welcome!
Classroom Parent	Each teacher has different hopes and dreams for this role...party planning? field trip coordinating? classroom volunteer coordinating? book order manager? We've contacted the teachers and they each have a wish list of jobs. We need one or two parent volunteers for each class to coordinate with the teachers and enlist the help of other parents to do the jobs. If many people help it will be minimal work for each person and we will build our Steele community and support our teachers at the same time. Our volunteer coordinator for the classroom parents moved on to middle school, so we are looking for someone to manage this group of classroom volunteers, which would include making sure each class has a classroom parent, notifying the volunteers of their position and notifying teachers of the volunteers.