Happy Burger Day

Have a birthday celebration where the featured food served is hamburgers and cheeseburgers with all of the fixings. Make a giant burger for the special birthday person.

A Gift of Years

When a person has a decade-advancing birthday (30, 40, 50, or 60), celebrate the uniqueness of the decade. Do NOT give “over the hill” presents, dress in black, and/or wear black armbands. Instead, make meaningful celebrations of these events.

Give the birthday person the appropriate number (30, 40, 50, 60) of a single item, such as:

• Tulip or daffodil bulbs
• Packets of flower or vegetable seeds
• Golf balls
• Balloons
• Suckers
• Candy bars
• Bubble gum pieces
• Snack size packs of potato chips, pretzels, cookies, etc.
• Packets of bath salts
• The corresponding number of weeks of a subscription to a magazine

Or present one item for each decade, such as (for a person turning 40):

• 4 books
• 4 picture frames
• 4 $10 dollar gift cards
• 4 layer cake

Another idea to celebrate a 40^th birthday is to use 40 Winks as the theme and give a basket full of sleep products such as bath salts, sleep shades for the eyes, melatonin, lavender sheet spray, etc.

Decorate a Tree

Give each person a long piece of fabric. Ask them to decorate and write a birthday wish on each piece. Tie the fabric pieces together to make a knotted garland. Drape the garland around a small tree or the branches of a tree as a table decoration.

Lunch is on US!
When your job is to make lunch for others every day, how nice it is to have it prepared for and served to YOU! During School Lunch Week in October, have the instructional staff members take up the kitchen and cafeteria duties so that the cafeteria staff members can enjoy a long (two-hour) lunch away from school at a local restaurant. Include a note of appreciation with the invitation to have a Lunch on Us! ( Contributed by: Robert Graham, McHarg Elementary School, Radford, VA) 

Golden Utensils Award
Spray paint kitchen utensils with gold paint and present them to the food service staff members to acknowledge the amazing job they do!

What activities do you do in YOUR school? Share your ideas…

T-shirt or Sweatshirt Day─All staff members are encouraged to wear a T-shirt or sweatshirt supporting a favorite professional or college football team or the college/university they graduated from.

Rival Team Fun─Colleges and universities have rivalries with other schools, and this makes the competition even more exciting. Ohio State University (OSU) and the University of Michigan (U of M) are examples of rival universities. Staff members have fun when these teams play each other.

Staff members who wear OSU attire on the Friday before the game have their names entered into a contest. At the end of the day, names are selected as prize winners. The winners received a framed photo of Brutus Buckeye, a framed photo of the OSU stadium, or cheerleader pom-poms. Darlene Roll shares, “There were many cries of ‘Pick me, pick me!’ coming from the staff during the drawing.”

Those who dared to wear the maize and blue of the University of Michigan were given M&Ms for Michigan Madness. (Contributed by: Darlene Roll, Ohio High-Point Career Center, Bellefontaine, OH)

At first, all you can do is look at the ruins in disbelief and cry. Then, you have to go on and make new plans. There were many helpful people who came to our aid in cleaning up the rubble, and then there were those who turned out not to be “volunteers” but rather sent an hourly bill for their time. It is times like this when you realize the goodness and the shortcomings in humanity.

We lost the orchard and the government took all of our assets other than our house. Starting over was a difficult task and challenges every part of your life. I wanted to just turn the calendar ahead a few years and have it as a memory rather than a reality. For those of who are experiencing the tragedy now, know that there are many who have you in their thoughts and prayers.