Parent Involvement

Parent involvement is an integral part of the People to People experience. Parents are involved with the People to People program just as they are in the everyday education of their children. Parents are invited to attend all of our Orientation Meetings, but are only really expected to be at the first and last meeting. We hope you will want to come to all.

For those of you that do opt to attend all the meetings there will be many levels of participation for you that hopefully will this experience as fun for you as it is for your child. One of the ways for you to become an integral part of this is to work on a committee or for some maybe a couple of committees. We will have you parents involved in many other activities during our meetings as well. Sometimes the committee work can be done concurrently to the meetings or away from the Orientation meeting.

Besides participating in the activities at the meetings you can be further involved in meetings by helping, as stated earlier, in a number of ways. Committees is another way to get involved. There are committees that organize food at the meetings, to creating fundraising committees, to helping manage paperwork. Below there is a list of committees we have had in the past and a short description of each. Please take a look and see if any of the committees listed might be one that you could help with to assist in making this a Outstanding experience for your child.

We will attempt to discuss this at the social so that we can hit the road running at our first Orientation meeting in January.

• Phone tree: Responsible for organizing and managing the phone tree. There is a phone tree template that can be used if a new one is not created. This person would also work on some dry runs to make sure the chain of command works.
  
• Fundraising: This committee has a free rain. The more creative you can be the more succcessful it will become. An address that may be useful: (www.fundingyoureducation.org) may be looked at and I also have put a few fundraising ideas on the blog.
  
• Food: Responsible for managing a food/beverage of some sort for each meeting. Meetings tend to be a bit long and a snack is definitely called for at some point during the meeting. :)
  
• Service Project Hours: We will be having forms for this. At this point a decision on how the service hours will be met and the committee may want to make some recommendations on this. I do have some ideas on it that might make it a bit more manageable.
  
• BonVoyage Picnic: This is a social meeting of sorts that will happen in June, just before we go on our journey. The committee will be responsible for finding a spot and determining what people will bring for food, etc. Other business items will be handled by the leaders.
  
• Photo Committee: This is a new committee that I would like to see get going. I believe there is a real opportunity for someone with a photo eye to have some fun. We could have a People to People Facebook where we could post pictures that are taken during the Orientation meetings, etc. Then pictures from the journey could be uploaded to it as well.
  
• Elected Official Committee: Responsibility here lies incoordinating a visit by an elected offical or organize a visit to an area like a city council meeting, etc. or coordinated a visit by someone that has visited the areas that we will be journeying to.
  
• Guest Speakers Committee: This committee could work with or combine with the elected official committee to coordinate an activity or two.
  
• Reunion Gathering Committee: Organize a reunion upon our return, place, date, etc. This often takes place a couple of weeks after we return, when the journey is still fresh in our minds. This gives our delegates a chance to organize notes, pictures, etc. from the journey that they can bring to the reunion.
  
• T-shirt Committee: Organize a design contest for a t-shirt that will be worn by our delegates while we are on our journey. It would include getting it printed as well.
  
• Currency Committee: Coordinate money transaction for teh group via US Bank Cedar Rapids or any other bank that we can get money exchanged for currency we will need in the countries we will be journeying to.
  
• Activities Booklet Committee: This can be fun for a creative individual. In the past we have put together a booklet that has information, games, delegate names, etc. in a booklet that delegates carry with them. Another way to record information about their journey.
  
• Secret Project Committee: Coming soon! Since this is a secret I can only share this with the Committee Chair. :)
  
• Communications Committee: This committee will coordinate articles that could be delivered to local newspapers, with stories, pictures, etc. There is quite a bit of material that People to People have as guidelines for this committee.

Post not completed. 11.21.2010