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A YEAR-END MESSAGE FROM OUR PTA PRESIDENTS
What a year it has been! First and foremost, we’d like to thank our outstanding Executive Board for collectively supporting the PTA by running events, recruiting parents, and supporting committees…all while juggling the everyday challenges in their own lives. Your commitment this year does not go unnoticed and is so appreciated by all! Thanks to all the parent volunteers and teachers/staff who jumped in on event day or made a contribution in any way. Nothing can happen without a team effort! We are proud this year that some non-EB members stepped up to co-chair committees. With that said, we’d like to make some notable shout-outs to them and to all who went the extra mile!
As always, we kicked off the school year with our Fall Bake Sale which was led by Jessica Rodas and Bindi Mehta…along with all the incredible bakers and contributors who trekked in from an unusual flash flood that day to make sure the bake sale went on as planned…and still managed to raise over $1600! Next up was Picture Days, where our community dresses up for the camera! Thank you to Martha Huff for coordinating with the school and our vendor, Stomping Ground in making it a smooth couple days of photo shoots for over 650 students and staff!
Thank you to Bushra Mannan and Lisa Weiss for leading the charge on coordinating Falloween…one of our most popular events in the Fall! Thanks to all the parent volunteers who helped transform the gym into a Halloween extravaganza that evening to help raise over $6700!
This year we decided to test drive PS 33’s very first Read-a-Thon and amazingly raised over $20K! Thanks to Laura Zito for getting this fundraiser started and making this event the beginning of a tradition in our PTA calendar! We strongly believe it will be bigger than ever next year!
Movie night was back in January with a Minions-themed evening organized by Tishauna Kelly and Rosa Asparro. Thanks to the awesome Kindergarten families for providing an outstanding concession stand that evening in order to raise funds for their TA!
Our Valentine’s Day bake sale was a festive success thanks to Lindsay Bruno Flammia who upped the ante on presentation, and along with all the incredible parent bakers and solicitors...helped raise over $2800!
Fun Run returned to PS 33 after a few years break and was a huge success bringing in over $26K from PS 33 families and friends! Many thanks to Linda Seibert, Ashley Lawson and Shannon Mulvihill for coordinating with our Fun Run vendor, Booster and for all the parent volunteers who came out to cheer on our children for a fun afternoon of running and school spirit!
It was an incredible year for community building! Thanks to Rosa Asparro and Shannon Mulvihill and all the parent chefs for bringing back Taste of 33 where parents got together to share their special dishes and dine with our community…and all right before the Thanksgiving rush too! Thanks to Aneesa Garcia for joining Rosa in organizing the Multicultural Fair later in the year along with the Third Grade classes for sharing all their country projects for the evening.
In addition, we had a few firsts here at PS 33! One was a school-wide Lunar New Year Celebration…complete with decorations out front, in the lobby and foyer…all donated by parents as well as handmade by all grades! We ended the week with a visit from the Chinatown Community Young Lions Club to celebrate with a lion dance in the auditorium with the entire school….all thanks to the LNY committee led by Yen-Ching Chuang & Julie Yuen-Wallen, along with Rosa Asparro, Laura Goodman, Felicia Lin, Lindsay Bruno-Flammia, and Selina Guo. Special thanks to PS 33’s art teacher, Ms. Vazirani for coordinating the handmade “firecracker” crafts that welcomed in the new year!
Another first was our Juneteenth celebration where all grades enjoyed learning the history of Hip Hop – dance, graffiti and rap. Thanks to Motoko Shoboji and Sharnette Rhoades for coordinating this school-wide assembly and to all the parents who showed up on the day of to help run the event!
We also had our first Family Game Night, created by the Equity Team of PS 33 led by Ms. Choi, Ms. Bianchini and Amanda Saechao in partnership with the PTA EB. It brought the community together for a fun night of games and special prizes to those who participated. This is sure to make a return next year…maybe even twice a year!
And lastly, our biggest community building event was also back and better than ever! The PS 33 Talent Show returned with a new sound system setup and spectacular talent from our very own PS 33 stars! Special thanks to the brave, Bindi Mehta for joining Julie Yuen-Wallen and Dhimy Jean to produce and coordinate over 50 acts and over 100 students. HUGE thanks to Zhi-Lin Qi, Aneesa Garcia, Victoria Li, Sandra Roff, Tishauna Kelly, Janathan Sealy, Felicia Lin, and Amanda Saechao. It took every single one of these volunteers over the course of three months to get us to the big show day!
Field day was a fun-filled blast thanks to Coach Barna and Coach Ramos! Thanks to Lindsay Bruno Flammia and Shannon Mulvihill for coordinating with the coaches, ordering T-shirts and recruiting parents in order to make it the perfect sports day for the kids!
The school community came together and voted for a space theme for the yearbook this year! Thank you to Amy Hsieh for designing the Pre-K to 4th Grade yearbook cover for the 2nd year in a row and to Matt Pitta for getting our yearbook on its feet. Big thanks to Aneesa Garcia for joining Julie Yuen-Wallen in meticulously putting together all the design elements and layout with over 60 pages! We are grateful for Lindsay Bruno-Flammia’s eagle-eye proofreading skills which helped us bring the yearbook over the finish line. A very special thanks to all the teachers for their contributions….especially to Ms. Litt and Amanda Saechao for helping us fill in all the holes that needed photos!
And then comes our biggest fundraiser of the year…the Spring Gala. Huge thanks to Bushra Mannan for getting the gala started early this year with a fun, Havana-themed atmosphere! A huge thanks to our auction chair superstars, Linda Seibert and Ashley Lawson for working tirelessly in putting together an incredible list of auction items. Along with the committee, parent volunteers and solicitors, we were able to raise over $60K!
A very special thanks to Jessica Allen for maintaining the PTA website and PTA Instagram accounts to provide 2 more outlets for families to stay in-the-know! And we can't forget Regina Haynes for being our “resident PS 33 baker” for bake sales, events, and for her extraordinary Talent Show goodie bags…as well as Sharnette Rhoades for being on top of all our concessions and event setups this year! Big thanks to Monia Mahmood who helped lead the 5th Grade Committee so that all of the 5th grade graduates could have an amazing send-off to middle school!
Special shout-out to Karen Weiner for working over the previous summer interviewing Teaching Assistants and putting paperwork together for our families in raising funds for the TA and Annual Funds in the Fall. Thanks to Karen and Ms. Vazirani for facilitating the Square One Art fundraiser as well. Big thanks to our treasurers Carly and Pete Andersonfor making some significant changes that benefited our PTA in a big way by saving on fees, gaining more interest from the bank and streamlining processes so that we could operate more efficiently! Thanks to Garrett Ziegler for making almost every single EB and General meeting in order to take meticulous notes so that parents have access to all the minutes. Thanks to Motoko Shoboji and Dhimy Jean for keeping our class parents informed so that they could also be an outlet of communication to our families. Motoko was also instrumental in leading enrichments this year which required a lot of time and coordination!
A tremendous thanks to our communication team of Jessica Rodas and Elizabeth Thomatos for fielding emails from our community as well as curating, chasing and publishing all the school and PTA information for our community all in one newsletter…every week! Their efforts made it easy for parents to use the newsletter as a resource for all things PS 33!
Last, but not least, a heartfelt thanks to the entire PS 33 main office and staff…especially to Principal Cindy, AP Danielle Remsen, Peter Panay, and Community Schools Director, Amanda Saechao for supporting our efforts as a PTA and helping teachers and parents work together on every level. We appreciate the teamwork and couldn’t have asked for a better team.
As many of you know, both of us will be leaving the school next year, but will always keep PS 33 in our hearts! Everything that makes this school unique, comes from parents working together with the school staff to create a supportive and healthy community for our children. If you’ve never volunteered for the school…please consider volunteering next year! No task is too small or too large and it makes the load lighter when more parents engage. You’ll not only make a big difference in your child’s academic and social experience, but you too will become a part of an incredibly caring and dedicated group of parents in the PTA. We hope to cross paths with all of you next year whenever we visit…in the meantime, wishing all of you and your families a relaxing and fun summer!
Julie and Shannon
PTA Co-Presidents, 2023-2024
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