Orchard View Schools

At Cardinal Elementary, our PTO plays an important role in the lives and education of our students. We are happy for the opportunity to support our students with both educational and fun activities for both the students and their families.

Our Fund-raiser is through The Goodies Factory in Holland. We have had lots of positive feedback from families as we continue to use this company. For the 2010-2011 school year, we put a large focus on the East Playground. While we are still working on that process, we would also like to focus on some academic needs of the school as well.

This year we’re very busy planning and organizing a Free Family Carnival (Meals provided for a minimal fee), Art’s Night – a free night of fun learning for the students in February,  a Scholastic Book Fair during conferences, scrapbook events  and The Candy Cane Shop for the kids to shop during the holiday season.  

A PTO committee is also dedicated to earning money to help the process of making additions to the East playground. Some local restaurant dates and family skating parties at Jumpin’ Jumpiter are being planned in hopes to earn money to continuously improve the East playground. March will bring the third Scrapbook event to help fund more progress as well.

On Fridays, PTO parent volunteers faithfully come in and offer students and staff either a bag of popcorn or suckers occasionally for just 25 cents. We purchased two new popcorn machines for the school in order to make and serve the popcorn more efficiently. We also received a geneous donation of a smaller popcorn machine donated by the Hits and Runs Baseball Club.

We’ve purchased a wide variety of items at the request of our principals or teachers.  Most recently, we approved $2500 to additional playground fund expenses.  The finacial support helped get the geodesic climber and swingset installed over the summer.  At the end of the 2010 school year, we approved keyboarding software, art display strips, books for the library, and $2000 to the music program that will help purchase a new CD player for the auditorium and hand held microphones. 

We’ve helped to fund other local programs in our school and community such as the Fishing Derby for kids hosted by Muskegon Police Department.

Money earned by our students through the PTO has also helped to pay for class field trips, refreshments for the talent show, Parent Community Involvement (PCI) activities, March is Reading Month skating parties, Box Top parties, 5th Grade Conflict Manager Camp, and healthy snacks for the students during M.E.A.P. testing.

Many thanks to the many wonderful staff and volunteers here at Cardinal Elementary. We could not do it without your support.

If you’d like to help make a difference in the lives of the students here, please join us on the