Neil Armstrong Middle School PTO President Message

Neil Armstrong Middle School PTO

Message From The President Neil Armstrong Middle School 5800 Murray Avenue Bethel Park, PA 15102 Phone: (412) 854-8751 Fax: (412) 833-5029 Voice Mail: 412-833-5005 School Hours: 8:05am - 3:05pm

Message From The President A Message from the PTO Co-President Leslie Poe Fall is here!!! The air is getting crisper, the nights colder and the days shorter—and I couldn’t be happier!! I love this time of year. I love it so much that the feeling has rubbed off on my family and they love it almost as much as I do. One of the reasons for this feeling is that, for us, it is the start of our holiday season. Some of our most time-honored holiday traditions start with Halloween. One of our near-and-dear to the heart traditions is picking our own special pumpkins from the pumpkin patch for my husband to turn into magical jack-o’-lanterns that not only we enjoy, but that also delight our trick-or-treaters. Every year the jack-o’-lanterns are different, except for mine. I always make sure I pick out a tall pumpkin to fit my design—a raven with the word “NEVERMORE” above it. Very appropriate for a Poe house! My son said to me the other day that he is looking forward to the next few weeks because of all the fun family things we do. I asked him, as I had asked his sister a few years ago, what if we didn’t do all the things we usually do. And he answered me almost exactly the way she had, “Why would we do that?” Why, indeed. That conversation made me think about the PTO, and how sometimes the same sort of mindset seems to set in. Why should we change anything? Why shouldn’t we do everything the same way we have always done it? Well, for one reason, change can be good. Small changes can reinvigorate. They can excite. They can make magic happen. Change can make magic happen. I have seen it. A few Octobers ago, we all piled in the van to go on our annual pumpkin patch hay ride. By the time we got to Trax Farm it was raining, and raining hard enough to make the ride a very uncomfortable one. I was so disappointed. It was the last weekend before Halloween, the hayride was one of our traditions—we had to go!! But instead we started driving to go “look at the leaves”, and ended up on the back roads of Mingo Creek Park. The rain had stopped so we got out of the van to go for a walk. The kids started picking the most beautiful leaves off the ground and handing them to me to save. We walked until we came across the only tree in this section of the park to still have its leaves. In the gentle breeze, the tree was literally dropping those last leaves one by one. It was the most beautiful sight. The kids then started trying to catch the leaves as they gently twisted their way to the ground. Before we knew it the kids were running and dancing around the tree and the sound of our laughter and the children’s shouts of joy filled the grove. The rain started to fall ever so softly then in a mist tinged silver by a sliver of the setting sun barely peeking through a cloud. But the kids didn’t notice, they were reveling in the moment. And we let them. The memory of watching them enjoy that most amazing of moments will live with me forever. IT WAS MAGIC. That night we took those beautiful leaves home and with the help of some direction from a magazine, some clay and a little Mod-Podge, turned them into keepsakes all of us still treasure. We never did go on that pumpkin patch hay ride. My point is that tradition is a wonderful thing, and believe me I am the queen of tradition, but sometimes it is nice to mix it up a little and see if something good falls out. That is what the PTO is trying to do this year. While we are keeping quite a bit the same, we are trying new ways of doing some things, such as communicating and fundraising. While our new website has proved to be a much more effective way of reaching our families for us, it is taking a little getting used to for some people who really want hard copies of things to hold in their hand and hang on the frig! But as more people get used to turning to the website for their information, the memory of our Astronaut will fade away! Our new NAMS NewsONLINE email blast system has really taken off with well over 450 of our families signed up already. We tried something new and for us it is truly magic. We are also going to be trying some new fundraising ideas. We have our big fundraiser, the Kidstuff Coupon Books, but we thought we would try a couple smaller things that might interest our families. The first new fundraiser, the Spirit Challenge, will be held Monday, October 12 and Wednesday October 14. This event is a kick off to our Spirit Week which begins on the 19^th. Chik-fil-a has graciously joined us in hosting the evening and has very generously agreed to donate 20 percent of all proceeds to NAMS. The idea is to come enjoy a meal, mention which grade your child is in and help them win an eight piece chicken nugget for everyone in that grade! Our other new fundraiser is our upcoming Bowl-A-Thon. Details for this event will be forthcoming, but suffice it to say my co-President, Kristen Normile, will be creating a fun evening for all. Fundraising is a necessity for the PTO to enable us to provide all our children with assemblies, fun days, field trips and team t-shirts. By offering our families a few new and fun ways to participate we are sure to meet our goals and maybe create a little magic along the way! We went back to Mingo Creek Park this past Sunday, in hopes of recreating that glorious day of four years ago. The leaves were still mostly on the trees and there was no silver mist. But my family’s laughter still echoed through that same grove as they played the ugliest game of two-hand tag football I’d ever seen. It was a great day, and a new tradition was born—the First Sunday In October Football Game. We mixed it up again and a little magic fell out! Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king. ---Mark Van Doren