Put your school on top by putting Box Tops in your school!

Recently, after devouring my almost-daily can of Progresso minestrone soup* (over a bed of home cooked brown rice**), I performed my usual cleanup drill: 

- Wash bowl and spoon

 - Rinse and recycle can

- Clip Box Top for Education from soup label

- Chuckle that a "box top" is on a "can side"

- Deposit Box Top into baggy on cork board

That's when I noticed that there was barely any room left in the bag, because it's been just over two years since I last tallied up those tiny coupons and put them into not-quite-as-tiny hands for educational use!

Quick background for any of you who've never noticed--let alone clipped--those colorful little pieces of packaging: for over twenty years, participating products in the Box Tops for Education program have encouraged their customers to save them and turn them in to their local public schools, which can exchange them for ten cents value in a catalog of educational and recreational supplies.

This is similar to the much older Campbell's Labels for Education program, which I was saddened to learn is in the process of closing up shop after more than forty years (at least that explains why I haven't been seeing them on products over the past few months). This is the message from their website which broke the bad news.

Anyway, back to the Box Tops: the nephew mentioned in the blog post linked above has since turned into a big, strapping middle school lad, but fortunately there's another young fella who calls me "Uncle," whose school is in the midst of a competition to see which classroom can box out all the others to become the top of the Box Tops heap. 

Since I'm curious, I'm weird, and I like math, I had to count up and photograph my accumulated ducats. This is what $18.90 worth of FREE educational funding looks like.

Hopefully, one of those little tokens will be what edges Mrs. Sherman's first grade class into first place, resulting in pizza for my nephew Sam and all of his classmates! 

Hey, speaking of pizza, that's one of the many edibles (and non-edibles) you can buy which are emblazoned with a Box Top worth a free dime for your favorite school. You can see the full list here, including a huge number of products from brands like Totino's, Annie's, Betty Crocker, Green Giant, Progresso, Old El Paso, Land O Lakes, Kleenex, Lysol, Hefty, Ziploc, and many more.

The grand tally of school funding that has resulted from the Box Tops program currently stands at over $719 million dollars. How amazing is that?! 

Even if you don't have kids of your own, I'm sure there's a relative, neighbor, or coworker whose child would love for you to pass yours along, or a school in your area that would welcome your donation, so I sincerely encourage you save yours going forward. 

In a shameful age where so many schoolteachers spend their own hard-earned money on supplies for their students (and many lawmakers want to keep cutting education funding), this is a free and easy way to help ease the burden on your local school. Just a little change in your routine can help make a big change in the world!

* [Full disclosure: this is NOT a sponsored post, but if the fine people at Progresso want to give me some cash and/or free soup, I'd be glad to amend this Editor's*** Note to reflect that it has become one. - Ed.] 

** [I will also gladly accept free brown rice. - Ed.]

*** [The editor of this blog is also the author of this blog. - Ed./Auth.]

Instead of a Bouquet for Your Sweetie, Donate Live Flowers in Their Honor!

I've personally never understood the allure of cut flowers. Aside from epitomizing the veritable sin of cutting down beauty in its prime, they last at best about a week before decay sets in and they get tossed in the trash bin (or, hopefully, the compost heap).

Don't you think that giving a gift of living plant life is more romantic than recently deceased plant life? Me too!

 Photo credit: New Yorkers for Parks

That's why I hope that this Valentine's Day, you'll skip the overpriced corpse flowers and invest in a living, breathing, carbon dioxide-eating floral array that you can visit time and again in your local park or greenspace!

The superb group New Yorkers for Parks has been a champion of public parks and other open spaces for more than a century, and one of their most recognizable programs is the Daffodil Project, which has planted more than six million bulbs throughout the five boroughs since 2001 (500,000 last year alone).

I'll bet your sweetie would be thrilled if you added to that number in their honor this Valentine's Day. Click here to sponsor a set of bulbs for your loved one (or for yourself, if you're a swinging single).

 Photo credit: New Yorkers for Parks

Plus, daffodils are perennials, so instead of flowers that will wilt and fade in a few days' time, these beauties will sprout year after year in public spaces all around New York City: a proper expression of your everlasting love!

I hope you all have a terrific Valentine's Day, and as always, I thank you for all the little things you do to change the world.