Parents Help Maple Grove School Win $10,000 Prize

Elm Creek Elementary prides itself on having an active Parent Teacher Organizer (PTO), and it’s that group of dedicated parents who helped the school win a $10,000 prize from Campbell’s Soup Company.

Last fall, members of the school’s PTO discovered the Campbell’s Grand Stand for Schools contest. Up for grabs was $10,000 to be awarded to 100 schools across the U.S. PTO members entered Elm Creek into the contest and encouraged the school’s other families to do the same.

Their diligence paid off when Elm Creek was announced as one of the nationwide winners last month. While Elm Creek will use some of the prize money to fund classroom field trips, more than one-third was dedicated to enhancing its literacy intervention offerings, according to a news release.

For several years, the school has used literacy intervention kits to provide additional reading support to students. The program has been available to students in lower grade levels, but literacy kits tailored to older students were too expensive to purchase in the past.

Emily Davis, school psychologist at Elm Creek, said the kits can cost up to $5,000 each. She noted that the award from Campbell’s was instrumental in helping the school purchase new kits and expand its literacy efforts.

“Having that bank of interventions is really important because if something doesn’t work, we want to try a few other sources to see if we can increase those [students’] reading skills,” Davis said in a statement.

Elm Creek Elementary is one of four Minnesota schools to receive the award from Campbell’s.

View the entire list of winners

Image via Shutterstock