Stow PTO - Picnic

The Picnic is a celebration of the schools, the children, their families and the community of Pompo/Center. It is the highlight of the social calendar for many families. The Picnic is a great way to introduce your child to the activities and the fun that make the Stow schools so wonderful. It is a community event with participation from all ages and is entirely volunteer staffed. The parents enjoy meeting up with the other parents and working at the many volunteer positions at the Picnic; the kids simply revel in the great party atmosphere.

The Picnic features food, games, music, and fun. At the games there are physical challenges for every age from toddler to teen. Each class contributes donations for Raffle Baskets which are usually chock full with the things kids love. We have a dunk tank to soak your teachers and coaches!

Over the years the Picnic has also emerged as an important fundraising event for the SPTO, although we like to call it a funraiser! Raffle Baskets are filled with items donated from each home room, and these baskets are raffled off at the Picnic. The funds raised by the raffles are used to directly benefit Stow’s elementary schools by providing arts and cultural programs and to purchase classroom enrichment materials throughout the school year for our kindergarten through fifth grade students.

Admission to the Pompo/Center Picnic is free, as are the games and entertainment. Tickets are sold for the food and for the raffles. The Picnic is usually held at Center School in early June on a Monday. We encourage Picnic attendees to bring a basket and a blanket. In 2009 the Picnic date was June 1.

It is an event not to be missed!!

The 2009 Pompo/Center Picnic was a huge success!
Wow! That was some fun, wasn’t it? The dunk tank, the awesome games, the monkey bridge, and the yummy food! What awesome desserts! The raffle baskets were SO amazing this year, weren’t they? Volleyball was a great addition to the backfield, wasn’t it? The face painting was fantastic. Attendees raved about the K-9 presentation. The Stow Fire Department being there was pretty cool, too! A good time was had by all!

This success story was due to the many families that volunteered their time, their food and themselves.

Thanks to all the Committee Chairs who brought this all together: Gretchen, Stacey and Jane for the seamless flow of the food area, ordering, organizing and providing; Kelly, Brigitte, Sara and Jen for the daunting task of ordering tables and the like, and the setup/breakdown; Nancy for the entertainment coordination, getting all the disparate groups there and on their marks; Karen for the K-9 facilitation; Leslie for all the incredible maps/signs and great ideas, and Jean for her fun graphics; Barbara and Mary Jo for organizing all those great candies and sweets; Larry and Pauline for ruling the dunk tank; Mary and Debbie for coordinating the cashiers and money issues—it was flawless, including the staffing of the satellite table; Sue and Julie for keeping us all hydrated with drinks, the purchasing, chilling and distributing of them as well; Michelle with Lori and Amy for the daunting task of coordinating Room Parents and raffle baskets, and making the baskets beautiful; PC Penguin for coming to the Picnic; Julie and Nora for the stamina to invent and organize all the games; and last but absolutely not least, Sheila and Andrea for the incredible organization of ALL the volunteers.

A special thank you to Corky and Allen for everything, and that is literally everything!

The 2009 Pompo/Center Picnic Coordinators would like to thank each family that attended the Picnic and helped in any small way to make this event such a huge success. It is nice to see the community come together!

Amanda Bennett and Pierie O’Connor
2009 Pompo/Center Picnic Coordinators