Natalie Taylor, a Montessori preschool teacher and parent at Mercury Mine Elementary School, won $20,000 for the school in the Box Tops Extra Credit Sweepstakes.
“At first, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was a gimmick,” she shares. “After the money showed up in our Student Council balance, and I had principal Donna Alley confirm it, I was absolutely shocked and excited.”
Taylor had collected under $10 of box tops at the time of entering the sweepstakes. She had to submit the Box Tops digital receipts between a segment of dates using the Box Tops for Education app.
Mercury Mine Elementary School will use the funds on STEM resources for the school’s new STEM special area such as robotics, engineering materials, and more. These items will be available for students as soon as this upcoming school year.
“That is one idea that would be exciting and used by all students,” says Principal Alley about the STEM special area.
Taylor’s advice for other schools to use in the future: “Keep collecting and submitting entries because you never know what will happen.”
Box Top for Education Program provides extra money for schools nationwide to use on supplies, technology, and other items.
Principal Alley shares that, since the switch to digital Box Top collecting has been hard for parents and students to transition to, maybe the sweepstakes is a way to incentivize the move to digital. “Mercury Mine is very grateful and will work harder to educate parents about the new digital process [for Box Tops],” she adds.
