Dr. Seuss's ABC

Every year in March, our elementary school PTO sponsors a "Dinner and A Book" Night honoring Dr. Seuss, because his birthday was in March. The cost of admission is one new book per family which is donated to an Afterschool program at Christmas. First, everyone goes to classrooms and listens to guest readers. Then the PTO serves a dinner for everyone to enjoy. And then a silent auction for themed baskets is held. It's a fun night! This was the second year that I was a chairman for this activity. I changed things a little bit this year, and I was pleased with the results. My theme this year was "Dr. Seuss's ABC: A Birthday Celebration".

There were two readers (one teenager and one adult) in each of four designated classrooms, and the kids were divided up among the rooms. This is the first year that the city library co-sponsored the event. The librarian Tammy chose the books for the guest readers, and there were some fun Dr. Seuss books read! She also explained to the children and parents about a grant she wrote, where the children could help earn $300 in free books for the school library and the city library, just by reading books at home and recording the books that were read. This also promotes our goal of family literacy!

For dinner, I made creamy potato soup with sausage and corn and a cheesy broccoli soup with chicken and onions. Last year we served tacos, but it was SO expensive! I also baked 250 croissant rolls to have with the soup. I made ALL of the soup and baked ALL of the rolls, can you believe it? That was the first time I'd actually cooked for 200 people all by myself! I was very impressed (and stressed!!!). For dessert, I had people bring white cupcakes with white frosting and we decorated them with blue frosting dots and red sprinkles.

Every themed basket started with a letter of the alphabet, for example "C is for Chocolate". I even made cute coordinating tags to put on each of the baskets. This year, I assigned a basket theme to TWO classes each. Last year each class had their own theme, and some classes didn't have enough donations brought in to fill their basket, so the PTO bought filler items, which was another unnecessary expense. The baskets were definitely full this year! The City Library also donated several baskets, which was awesome! 100% of the proceeds from the baskets is returned to the teacher's classrooms. My husband is an ebay fan, and just loves the silent auction! This is our third year of purchasing a basket! This year, Josh ended up with two! We won "A is for Afternoon Snacks" and "F is for Fathers". I really love this event! I think it is so much fun and promotes a great cause!