Year in Review: 2025-2026
This year, you showed up in all kinds of ways: volunteering time, attending events, helping teachers, sharing food, and showing care for our school. Whether you were able to pitch in once or often, visibly or quietly, your presence made a difference. Here’s what we built together:
💪 Volunteer Power!
268+ hours from over 60 volunteers this year. And that’s just the official sign ups! Many others stepped up in the moment, lending hands (and hearts) when they were needed most.
An outdoor transformation, book fairs, classroom support, pancake breakfasts, Staff Appreciation Week, movie nights, bike fair, and so much more – This wouldn’t have been possible without you, and every moment added up to a stronger, more connected school community.
🍿 Movie Nights
Our PTA-sponsored Movie Nights turned our auditorium into a cozy theater several times this year.
3 movie nights, featuring hits like K-Pop Demon Hunters and My Neighbor Totoro.
300 bags of popcorn, countless snacks and drinks, and 4 humongous pizzas devoured.
A wildly successful fundraiser at the wonderful Hollywood Theatre, featuring the movie Hook!Ru-fi-o!
📚 Library Love
The PTA supported our school library with volunteer hours and financial help. This included assisting with book sorting, shelving, donations, and free books for kids.
Over $4200 raised for the library via grants and the book fair
2 big hit book fairs
A successful new program, Book Fair Bingo, that gave every kid at Vestal an opportunity to spend $5 at our winter book fair.
🌱 Grounds and Garden Care
Our Grounds and Garden team put in the work this year, making our school grounds a more beautiful, welcoming, sustainable space for us all.
Over the course of 8 Community Care Days, volunteers added 88 native plants to the student garden, as well as our brand new bug hotel, and a replacement chalkboard.
Countless buckets of weeds removed from the garden and grounds.
Approximately 200 pounds of trash picked up around Vestal.
🪴 A New Place to Learn
Our beautiful new Outdoor Learning Courtyard is the product of many, many hands, and a collaboration with the wonderful organization Depave. This is a space for all Vestal children to get to learn outside, in a place of beauty and intention, and here’s just some of what went into making it happen!
So many volunteers, totaling over 600 volunteer hours! Including:
45 to help depave
50 to plant trees
15 willow tunnel weavers
50 to plant and clean up
40 at the ribbon cutting
The outdoor classroom includes 242 plants, and 16 trees.
In total, 2900 square feet of Vestal Grounds were depaved.
🌿 First Ever Student Green Team
We are so proud of this group of students who showed up for our first ever Student Green Team, showing their dedication to their school and their community, and their status as young leaders in sustainability.
46 students joined us over the course of 4 meetings this spring - with 22 students attending all four meetings!
Students helped care for the garden and keep away pests by releasing 2000 ladybugs.
The art portable was beautified with the building of 3 planter beds containing 31 plants.
🌿 Staff Appreciation
Staff are the heart of our school. During Staff Appreciation Week, the PTA organized daily surprises to show our gratitude:
Monday – Pastries & Praise
Tuesday – Little Free Library & Dessert
Wednesday – PTA Parent Potluck Lunch
Thursday – Zen Den & Chair Massages
Friday – Mini Bouquets of Thanks
And we were able to provide over $2000 in classroom reimbursements to help with materials and supplies throughout the year - more than doubling our reimbursements from the year prior.
🚲 Getting to School Safely
We kept kids moving this year with walking buses, bike events, and Safe Routes to School support—helping families get to school safely, confidently, and together.
4 bike buses and 2 walking buses helped kids get to school safely together all year long from various areas around our school.
We handed out swag and donut holes to so many students during 5 Walk & Roll to School Days.
During our amazing bike fair, we were able to give away over 50 bikes!
🥳 Rocking Out at Rock, Paper, Soirée
The Rock, Paper, Soirée returned as an evening dedicated to connection, joy, and raising support for our school.
With food, drinks, a raffle and silent auction, generous donations from local businesses and incredible volunteers, it was a chance to celebrate our community and ensure we can keep funding key efforts this year and beyond.
Gathered nearly half of our school community four a night out together.
Gave away over $15000 in donated prizes from local businesses.
Raised an incredible $14997 to help support the entire Vestal community - topping the amount raised by last year’s soirée!