If anyone is worried about the demise of paper in our society, they should talk to a parent with children in elementary school.
Eighteen pieces of paper and a catalogue came home in my kids' backpacks today. I thought that when my children went to school, homework would be the thing that I would hate. Little did I know that the bane of parents' existence would actually be... fundraising.
Parent Advisory Councils, or PACs for short, are a necessary and important part of the school systems. PACs raise money for playground equipment, manage hot lunch programs and generally just be awesome people raising money for things for the schools and the children in the schools. I have a terrible tendency to feel guilty about the few people who volunteer their time on behalf of the many so in situations where people need volunteers, I reluctantly raise my hand and end up in charge of a committee.
That is how I ended up becoming the recording secretary of a strata council of a large condo building when we lived in Victoria. It was terrible. People fought all the time. There were cranky people that would write the strata council nasty letters because "we weren't doing enough." People would get their knickers in a twist because the roof needed to be fixed and people did not like to spend money even though not spending the money would make the roof collapse and cost more money.
More recently, I opened my mouth at a union meeting and now I'm the chair of an engagement committee. I am a sucker for volunteering motivated entirely by guilt. It is for all of these reasons that I am avoiding making eye contact with any of the PAC members at my kids' school. I have too much right now and I am (supposed to be) writing my thesis so I cannot volunteer for one more thing.
Which brings us back to the flyers. PACs raise money largely by various fundraising take-home flyers: book orders (hello Scholastic!), reusable sandwich bags, label things with your kid's names, take your kid's drawing and make it into overpriced things to give to grandparents for Christmas, flowers, flower bulbs that you mistakenly buy and it spreads like a weed in your garden and you spend the next summer pulling runners and plant babies, and magazine subscriptions.
I am not counting the other charity fundraisers that appear in your kids' bags throughout the schoolyear like Jump Rope for Heart and Terry Fox Run. If you donated five dollars to every fundraiser that comes your way, you would be broke and all the children of the world would have the best playgrounds ever. I try to support at least one fundraising endeavor and one charity event each year and try to not let the rest of the requests bother me.
I would like to be able to support everything and volunteer for everything. I am learning that I can't do that and stay sane. We can all only do what we can and I am so grateful to the people who are doing what I can't. To all of the volunteers and especially to the PAC volunteers at every school, thank you so very much.
Thank you.
You are the best.
