Scrip progam can reduce tuition

PROBLEM:
In most cases, a school fundraising opportunity involves the students and parents investing the work and the school spending the money raised. Obviously, the families receive benefit, but it is more indirectly felt, and families who work the hardest aren’t always rewarded proportionately.

A SOLUTION:

• The Great Lakes Scrip program offers a fundraiser in which the families earn credit for their individual students’ tuition and other LPA expenses.
• The program is 100% optional.
• Earn a little or earn a lot. You can get friends, co-workers, and out-of-town relatives involved, which means the opportunity to raise serious amounts of money.

Lake Pointe’s scrip program is coordinated by parent Jeanette Botko.

Here’s a simplified explanation of how scrip works:

• Great Lakes Scrip offers its program to non-profit organizations. Families earn rebates on each gift card purchase. More than a hundred retail store cards are available.
• Families who choose to participate simply purchase gift cards for places where they plan to shop and use those cards instead of cash or credit – or sell them. See below.*
• Great Lakes Scrip Center sells gift cards to LPA at a discount.
• LPA families who buy cards – and those to whom the families sell them – pay full face value for the gift cards. The buyers redeem the cards for full face value.
• The discounted difference is credited as a rebate, earning a percentage of every dollar spent using the scrip gift cards. 75% of the rebates earned is immediately credited to the families’ accounts, to be used to reduce tuition or to pay for other expenses such as sports or study trips. The other 25% is credited to LPA. After covering administrative costs, the funds raised will be used to purchase classroom sets of books, further reducing education costs to families.
• Networking and enterprising families can experience exponential credit by selling gift cards to friends, neighbors, and relatives who want to support the students. People who won’t buy chocolates or gift wrap often will buy gift cards with no mark-up. A company a parent works for might buy hundreds of dollars gift cards as incentives or gifts. Grandparents and aunts across the country can buy refillable Walmart cards, with the credit going to the LPA student.
• Here’s an example. A neighbor who plans to spend $100 at Bath and Body Works anyway can buy a B&BW gift card from an LPA family for $100. The LPA family then receives $13 credit. For the same $100, a Lowe’s card yields $4, Walgreens provides $6, and Marriott rewards $8. Some companies such as LL Bean and Lands End give 15%. The amounts are modest, but they can really add up over the course of a year.

Participating retailers’ products range from groceries and music to books, clothing, and specialty stores. Here are just a few of the most popular retailers in the program:

AMC theaters, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Best Buy, CVS, Disney, Gap, Home Depot, iTunes, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Lowes, Macy’s, Marriott, Outback, Panera Bread, Red Lobster, Sam's Club, Starbucks, Subway, Target, Toys-R-Us, Walgreens, Walmart