Box Tops For Education is a General Mills promotion going on among many packaged food items. They are tiny pink labels located on the top of the packaged item, you may have seen the commercials or heard about it from your kids school. Parents and school children are encouraged to collect the tiny labels and turn them into the school, the school then turns them in to the General Mill Box Tops For Education and 10 cents is given to the school per pink label. Schools can earn extra cash for some of the things they need, and of course any little bit can help and it is better than doing nothing. But is it enough, and can Box Tops For education and the product manufacturers do more? Is it all gimmick and product promotion, or are they really trying to do something to help schools and kids.
According to The Center For Education Reform, there are about 98,793 public schools in the us. Toady's public schools spend $528.7 billion dollars annually, that's all public schools combined, and $10,889 dollars is the average district public school per pupil expenditure annually. General Mills Box Tops For Education since its start in 1996 has given 300 million dollars to 90,000 participating schools. Not bad, but when you do the math it really doesn't equate to much, at 10 cents per label if a school collected 5,000 labels that would be only 500 dollars. A school would have to collect 10,000 labels just to earn 1,000 dollars. Now I can see the earning potential provided that all students and families or at lest most of them will actively participate in the program, but what are the odds that a typical school will collect that many labels or more.
First you have to buy the Box Top products, sure some of them you may buy anyway but the Box Top promotions are intended to sell more of the products and you may be going out of your way to purchase things you may not have purchased otherwise. Then you must remember to clip the label off the package before you trash it, store them in a safe place, be sure not to loose them, and get them to your kids school or Box Tops For Education before the expiration date. General Mills does give about three years to the expiration date, so the biggest problem really is trashing the labels or loosing them.
The General Mills Box Tops For Education is a fair program and great marketing promotion, they have a website that you can join and see the earning of your child's school as well as participate in extra earnings for the schools. Upon signing up for the emails you will receive coupons to purchase more Box Top labeled products and recipes using participating products.
If you diligently collect the labels and encourage Friends and family to do it as well it may be more worth doing, the more the better. Consider this, you pay about five dollars for a box of cereal that has the box top and only 10 cents is donated if and when you turn in the label. And most participating products will cost you 3-5 dollars with the exception of some smaller items. The promotion is designed in a way were you will probably purchase the items because of the Box Tops but not remember to turn them in. This program is definitely more gimmick and product promotion then actually wanting to help US schools. If you are going to buy the product anyway then save the tops if you like but don't go out of your way to purchase things you would not have in the first place.
Considering the profit potential that The Box Tops For Education promotion is generating I feel more than 10 cents per label can be achieved especially in these times when schools really need it. Perhaps General Mills could match the earnings, doubling the donation that is going to the schools. I say try it out diligently, learn about it, keep track of the earnings for your kids school and stay active in your kids schools, donate your time and money when you can as well as the box tops. Help your school think about an event that can raise money for the school, there is much you can do.
