PTA Do-Gooders

Continuing with our New Year's Resolution theme, I wanted to cite some truly good deeds done by a group that often gets picked on in the mommy blogosphere: the school parent teachers association, or equivalent group. Sometimes, the parents become so enthusiastic and strident that they make good cartoon targets, especially for those of us who might feel a tetch guilty about not volunteering. But a few dedicated parents can make an incredible difference in the life of the school, its children, teachers, and the very parents who poke fun at the uber-volunteers.

Here are three examples from my life:

In the 1970s, my mom single-handedly started an after-school sports program at my elementary school in D.C., Horace Mann, that provided cheap, incredibly fun activities for boys and girls for more than two decades. She hired a sports teacher who organized co-ed softball, kickball, soccer, capture the flag, gymnastics and other games five days a week. Those adventures, and the sportsmanship I learned on the blacktop, stayed with me for life (and I assume the other kids, too). The program was dismantled fairly recently as individual tutoring and specialized sports programs replaced the casual, everyone-plays focus of the original program.

At the small independent school I attended after Horace Mann, another mom started an annual antiques auction to benefit the school's small scholarship fund. Other moms and dads took over, expanded the annual event, and now the parents, grandparents, students, teachers and alumni raise more than 25 percent of the school's financial aid in a single night's event.

Fifty years ago, parents at the Green Acres School in Rockville, Md., put together mimeographed sheets about fun activities for children in the Washington, D.C. area. Subsequent groups of parents, grandparents and staff improved on the original guide. This year marks the 50th anniversary edition of Going Places with Children in Washington, D.C.. The Washington Post calls the guide "a bible for parents since 1958," with good stuff for vacationers and locals including classics like Glen Echo Park and newcomers like Exploraworld in Columbia.

No one among these volunteers made any money or became famous from the ventures. Hopefully, they had some fun along the way, but clearly, they threw themselves into these projects to benefit their children's community. I'm sure you have more examples to inspire us for the coming year. What have you done or seen others do to make a positive contribution to your kids' world?

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  January 4, 2008; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Free-for-All
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