How You Can Help

Serve on a Garden Oaks Committee

To volunteer with a specific committee, please contact the appropriate committee director directly. These are a few of the committees that parents can participate in.

Grant Writing - Steve Pittman, Executive Board Director of Fundraising at stevepittman@earthlink.net. This committee develops requests to various funding organizations for large and small grants that support the Montessori program.

Communications - Joe Crownover, Communications Chair, at joseph.crownover@shell.com. This committee is responsible for a quarterly newsletter, our GOES FOM Big Tent site, this web site, media announcements, flyers, letters, and publicity for the program.

Big Tent is an online social network dedicated to communications about our GOES Montessori program and all FOM partnering schools. Once in the program and on the list, you’ll receive electronic messages about upcoming events, classroom news from teachers, ways you can support the program and info about Montessori resources. Once your child is enrolled, you can go to www.bigtent.com. Search for Friends of Montessori, click on the link and submit your request to join.

Programs - Victoria Muraywed, Programs Chair, at vmuraywed@hotmail.com. This group assists with building, laminating, cutting, sorting, and copying the learning materials that make up the Montessori "Prepared Environment." Your child's teacher or room parent can also point you to specific materials making tasks.

Pancake Breakfast Committees - Please contact Elizabeth Klein, Fundraising Chair, at elizabethlklein@yahoo.com. There are a number of sub-committees involved in the events success: logo design/public relations team, entertainment team, children's classroom auction items team, Admin (letter writing, printing and making copies, stuffing envelopes), Silent Auction team (calling donors, picking up donations, inventory of items), decorations design team, Childcare coordinator.

And of course the day of the event, volunteers are needed too! Decorating, set up, children's crafts, childcare, monitors, check-in and check-out, coordinating volunteers, flipping the pancakes and cleaning up!

Spanish Liaison - OPEN - This position provides written translations for event flyers and quarterly newsletters and verbal translations for meetings as well as volunteer coordination for Spanish-speaking families.

Volunteer Your Time

If you are interested in sharing your talents in the classroom, please contact your child's teacher directly. Read stories, listen to the children read, give a lesson in your field, help with Crafts, etc. Being in your child's classroom, even for a short period of time, has been shown to improve success rates of children.

During the summer, we have 4 workdays per month.

Each month will have 2 weekdays, 1 weeknight and 1 Saturday to accommodate all family needs.
There is also a final workday on campus that will include getting ALL of the classrooms ready for the new school year!

We need your help with:

Materials Making: (includes copying, coloring, cutting, laminating, etc.)
Carpentry: (we will need to make materials boxes, shelves, etc.)

Your time in this venture will go towards your 20 hours of volunteer service. For more information, visit the Calendar page.

Underwriting Opportunities

Friends of Montessori needs your support to continue providing a high quality Montessori educational experience to our neighborhood children. The program is now an established part of Garden Oaks Elementary School, but continues to face challenges in securing adequate funding to cover the costs of the classroom aides, materials updates and/or replacements for older classroom materials, and need-based scholarships.

To cover these and other costs, Friends of Montessori at Garden Oaks has a fundraising goal of $25,000 each year, and individual and corporate contributions always play a big role in meeting our goals. All contributions go directly to the Garden Oaks Montessori program unless specified for other needs and are recognized in our FOM publicity and collateral pieces throughout the year. Through the assistance of our financial sponsors, our children can continue to grow and receive the education they deserve.

If you are interested in making a financial contribution, large or small, please contact Lou Ann Taylor at jimktaylor@juno.com.