SES PTSA Newsletter 01-18-2023
Sunnyside PTSA Weekly Update
Wednesday, January 18, 2023 
~ Find the latest Messenger newsletter from the SES office here. ~
We had a great SES PTSA meeting last Friday and heard from a few amazing students who shared their appreciation for SES:
“It’s inclusive and cares for every gender.” – Finula, 5th grade
The students also shared some things they would like to improve at our school, including having better, cleaner bathrooms, removing playground graffiti, bringing the chickens back, removing rainwater from the slides, and most importantly:
“To make sure all people have what they need.” – Norah, 5th grade
Next meeting is set for Friday, February 10 at 8:45 am in the SES Maker’s Room!
Gratefully,
PTSA Co-presidents,
Auburn + Heather
Volunteer Opportunities 
Read-a-thon is returning to SES Feb 21 through March 9 and we need volunteers! 
All of our kiddos LOVE this event! Five authors will be visiting or school and sharing the love of reading. We need loads of volunteers to help make this event a success! Jobs include but are not limited to:
- Call + email local businesses to ask for donations of reading prizes, gift cards, book bundles, etc!
- Create donations for the hallways and display case. This year’s theme is about book banning: Read, Rise, Resist
- Volunteer at SES to assist with Read-a-thon events, such as an author visit, dress-up day, etc.
- Help decorate the school with signs and decorations!
- More!
If you’d like to help out, you can fill out this leslielothamer 
Fundraisers 
The SES Spring Auction is coming back, and we’d love your involvement! 
It’s only January, yes, but it’s time to think about the SES Spring gala — our biggest fundraising event of the year! Your collective generosity makes this happen — by contributing time, ideas, or resources; whatever you have access to. The gala is powered by SES PTSA’s all-volunteer Spring Gala Committee on behalf of Sunnyside Environmental School Foundation (SESF). The purpose of this event is to raise funds that support FTE school staffing for next year as well as our school’s required contribution to the Fund for PPS, which promotes funding equity across the district. This year’s gala will take place in early May at a TBD date and location. Super fun theme TBA soon! We are in need of the following:
- A venue for 150 to 200 people and food/beverage
- Donations for silent auction
- Party Board hosts – many!
- Class Creative Art Projects Coordinator
- Planning Committee Members
To learn more about each need, sign up for a role, or give us your event ideas, please fill out our Spring Gala Donations Form. 
As always, consider donating to Fred Meyer Rewards and Amazon Smile and change your beneficiary to Sunnyside Environmental School!
Questions, ideas or submissions for future newsletters? Email Heather at tanky34 or Auburn at auburnmarie3
Hope to see you then/there!
to organize? Is Marie Kondo-ing your house your favorite activity? We’ve got the volunteer job for YOU! 
PTSA and Sunnyside could use a super organizer to lead the effort in clearing out our community kitchen and storage space in the cafeteria. What does this entail? Basically, it means taking everything out of cabinets, testing it, checking it for dents and cracks, and cleaning it up to see if it can still be put to use! 
We would love to have clean, organized cabinets with everything working and in its place! Like to shop? We’re also hoping this person can help shop (with a small provided budget) for and purchase a few useful new items to replace anything that needs tossing. This project can be done anytime in January! To learn more or volunteer, contact auburnmarie3. 
of a week for sure, as we all get back into the swing after a long winter break! We are keeping this week’s email short and sweet, but next week you can look forward to a full survey of PTSA activities to help us guide our priorities for the second half of the school year! We also have so many fun events coming up, including everyone’s favorite, Read-a-thon, coming up in Spring! THANK you so much for all that you do to make this school so magical! 
and we’ve all been busier than ever! 
THANK YOU so much to everyone who has jumped in to help volunteer, donate, join a committee, work a shift, or support in whichever way works best for you. We appreciate the many ways in which you give. This school is filled with so many amazing kids–and all of you are to thank for that. 
Did you make it to the Winter Craft Fair?? If not, here are a few pictures of some of the many amazing, creative items that our students were selling. Some of these young artists donated all of their money back to the school! Others spent their earnings at other student’s shops! We’re planning to bring the event back next year with some updates and changes based on your feedback! A full survey of PTSA activities will go out school-wide after Winter Break!
(we’ll provide the coffee!) – next Thursday morning! You can drop your contribution off in the office, ideally by 8:30am, so our teachers can grab a plate before class! Gluten-Free, Vegan and/or Low Sugar options are always especially appreciated!
Don’t forget, the Riparian Festival is this Friday, December 9 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. This event celebrates our SES students’ work studying forests, rivers, oceans, and mountains. All ages are welcome! 
It was so much fun crafting, playing, pizza-ing, and fake pillow fighting with your kiddos while you were out and about! Thanks for entrusting us with their care. 
We hope to host a couple of these nights each year to help raise more funds and give our SES parents a much-deserved break! 
One of our amazing parents will be discussing ways you can help support Christina in the cafeteria, hints for encouraging kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, and other changes to the school meal program this year. Hope to see lots of you there, in person or virtually!
(NEW!) 
For first timers like us, it was so awesome to see students, families, teachers, and community volunteers all come together to create a joyful fundraiser that couldn’t have been more successful or fun! A HUGE thank you to everyone who planned, participated, volunteered, and enjoyed the magic of Harvest Fair. You’ll get to read a full recap below, and you’ll even have a quick chance to weigh in on how to make next year even better!
rain paused just in time. We 
plunged, 
palace-ed and 
PARTIED for one of the largest and most epic ally attended Harvest Fairs in recent memory! That was awesome and it was so nice to see our school ALIVE with joy once again. THANK YOU to all volunteer s. From working shifts to bringing cookies to coming and having fun, we APPRECIATE YOU! Plus, we raised more than $7, 500 (!!!) for our 
GoFund and 
