Te Whānau Āwhina are the parent fundraising and event co-ordination group at Kaurilands School.  

Te Whānau Āwhina are an absolutely vital part of our school.  Every year we need to raise funds to bolster the Operational Grant we receive from the Ministry of Education.  For those of you interested to know, our operations grant is $936,729 which pays for all our administrative and support staff, property and maintenance, admin, Library, relievers, professional development and so on and most importantly,  resources for our children!  (FYI the operational grant does not pay for teachers salaries or big building projects such as the one we are currently completing).

As with most schools there is an expectation that our community needs to fundraise.  The figure we are aiming for in 2018 is $50,000.   At this stage the school is planning two discos, weekly sausage sizzles, cake stalls, calendar art, a movie night and school photos.

Te Whānau Āwhina is very generously being run again this year by our 2017 co-ordinators - Janine Smillie and Jeanene Barclay.  Te Whānau Āwhina currently comprises an extremely small number of helpers.  We are a big community - 733 children today and growing - which means a very large parent and whānau number.  So many of you help us in an extraordinary number of ways already which is amazing but we need some of you - Mums, Dads, Whānau to help us with organising fundraising events.

One of our most successful fundraisers over the previous 3 years has been an annual quiz night.  This event raises a significant amount towards the $50k we hope to achieve.  We need a group of parents to organise this event.

If you can help a little or a lot with the quiz night, or any of our previously mentioned events, please contact Janine Smillie - email j9smiley@hotmail.com or Jeanene Barclay - email  gray.barclay@xtra.co.nz OR pop into the office and speak to Jackie Fletcher.  If you have any other new ideas that you or a group would like to organise, we would love to hear from you.

A new initiative Janine and Jeanene have begun this year is to run a food and clothing bank for our school community.  We have begun to collect food items which can be shared with those in need.  If you have any food donations, please drop these into the office.  We won't start collecting clothes until we have more space when the building project is complete.

I am aware that some families would like to assist by making cash donations.  If you would like to do this please come and see Gillian or Erin in the office.

Whew!

What makes Kaurilands School such a great place to be is our incredibly unique and generous community.  Please keep supporting us in providing the best possible learning experiences for all our children.

Arohanui

Jo