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© 2010 Theresa B. Clarke
When my son started kindergarten, his class was challenged to collect as many boxtops (a.k.a., Boxtop$ for Education) as possible. For every boxtop turned in, his school would earn 10 cents. I went through everything in my fridge, freezer, and pantry and gave him all of the boxtops I could find.
A few months later, there was another request to send in boxtops to school. My son said there was a competition and the class with the most boxtops would win a prize of 30 extra minutes in the library to play on iPads. Knowing that I could only buy so many boxes of Cheerios and Chex Mix, I turned to my tribe of marketing students for help. I launched a box tops contest in my own marketing classes. Ultimately, my son’s class won the contest and they were so excited!
I gave my students bonus points on their final test for turning in boxtops. Below are the guidelines used for the contest:
- No later than the day of your last test in the course bring in boxtops in a small plastic bag or envelope.
- Boxtops must be neatly cut out on the dotted lines in order to count.
- Write your name, the class section’s starting time, and the total number of boxtops on the outside of the bag or envelope.
- Ten boxtops = 1 bonus point earned. Twenty boxtops = 2 bonus points earned. Thirty boxtops = 3 bonus points earned. Forty boxtops = 4 bonus points earned. Fifty or more boxtops = 5 bonus points earned.
- The student with the most boxtops will earn an additional five point bonus towards their final grade.
More information about collecting boxtops is available at the BoxTopsForEducation Facebook page and Boxtops4education.com.
Although the Labels for Education is a different program, students can also clip these labels as well. Below is the label for the Labels for Education program.
What are some creative ways you have used to collect a lot of boxtops and labels?
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Stats from my Fall 2012 Students:
Overall:
1611 total boxtops collected. This amounts to a donation of $161.11!
30 total students out of 61 participated for a 49.2% participation rate.
The winning section was the 2:00 section.
12:30 section
24 total class size
9 students turned in boxtops
37.5% participation rate
553 total boxtops from this class section
23.04 avg number of boxtops per enrolled student
2:00 section
21 total class size
12 students turned in boxtops
57.1% participation rate
674 total boxtops for this class section
32.1 avg number of boxtops per enrolled student
3:30 section
16 total class size
9 students turned in boxtops
56.25% participation rate
384 total boxtops for this class section
24 avg number of boxtops per enrolled student
Prior to the first day of class, I read the syllabus and noticed that it was extra credit to collect Box Tops. Therefore, I immediately told my parents to start collecting for me! My parents collected approximately 15 over the course of the semester.
I asked my roommates to collect Box Tops for me too. I magneted a Ziplock bag to our refrigerator. Most of the time, they forgot to cut them off of their box. However, I would see them in our trash can and I would cut them off for my roommates! Our main source of Box Tops came from Progresso soup. Their soups are a great, cheap dinner for a college student and there’s an added bonus: they have a Box Top on the label!
The last source of my Box Tops came from my boyfriend and his roommates. Every time I would visit him at Radford, there would be a small pile of Box Tops waiting for me. Since my boyfriend has 6 roommates, all being boys, they eat a lot and I was able to obtain a lot of Box Tops from them.
At the end of the semester, I turned in 101 Box Tops and received a 10% bonus on my final exam. It was totally worth it! Even though the “competition” is over, I still find myself saving Box Tops. I plan to give them to Dr. Clarke at the end of the Spring semester so she can turn them in to her son’s school. It is a great feeling giving back to the community.
As a poor college student, I rarely go shopping and tend to buy the cheaper brands that don’t always have boxtops. So this seemed to be a very challenging task. However utilizing a few networks and “friend of a friend” type relationships, I landed about 75 boxtops.
My suggestion for future classes, is to just make a few phone calls, send an email to mom, or even just send a quick text asking your best friend to clip a few boxtops. All you have to do is find that one person who is sitting on a stock pile and go raid their house. For me, it was my girlfriend’s mom (I think I got about 50 just from her).
I will plan to keep on collecting boxtops and will definitely donate them!
When I realized that collecting box tops could get me extra credit I immediately called my mother. She collected box tops for my siblings and me when we were in elementary school and my class always won the contest! She collected about 50% of my boxtops.
The other 50% of the box tops were collected from my roommates, my boyfriend’s house, and the University Program Board executive board. My roommates started cutting them from their boxes and leaving them magneted to our memo board for me. Secondly, every time I went to my boyfriend’s house I checked for box tops in his cabinets and asked his roommates to do the same. I also asked my co workers from UPB, who mostly forgot, but I got a few from them.
In total I collected 88 and am still collecting them now!
Stats from my Spring 2013 MKTG 470 Students
Overall:
2,283 total boxtops collected. This amounts to a donation of $228.30!
34 total students out of 55 participated for a 61.8% participation rate.
The winning section was the 11:00 section.
11:00 section
34 total class size
21 students turned in boxtops
61.8% participation rate
1,589 total boxtops from this class section
46.7 average number of boxtops per enrolled student
75.7 average number of boxtops per participating student
12:30 section
21 total class size
13 students turned in boxtops
61.9% participation rate
691 total boxtops for this class section
32.9 avg number of boxtops per enrolled student
53.2 average number of boxtops per participating student
Thank you to all Spring 2013 students for helping my son’s school!