Clip For Schools During National Box Tops For Education Week


For the past couple years, Fast Horse been working with Box Tops for Education to raise awareness about their program. I just joined the team earlier this year, however, and have been consistently floored by the fanaticism of the people who participate, and the significant impact the program has made on local schools. People love Box Tops.

You don’t see that level of love and passion for every brand, that’s for sure. I’ve seen it on Diet Coke. You feel it for Target, Nike.

The love for Box Tops translates into dollars for schools, too. Since the program was founded by General Mills in 1996, Box Tops for Education has earned more than $840 million for K-8 schools. More than 70,000 schools across the country have used that cash to purchase items like laptops, books, paint brushes, swing sets and more.

Schools can earn up to $20,000 per year by collecting and submitting clipped Box Tops, which, if you’re wondering, is a significant amount for an elementary school. The mechanics of the program have remained the same since its inception. All you have to do is look for Box Tops on participating products, clip them off the package, and submit them to a school of your choice. Each Box Tops clipping is worth 10 cents, and they add up fast.

I’m hyper-aware of Box Tops now, and I’ve been surprised to find them hiding on a bunch of products in my home. We all know they’re on cereal boxes, but I found them on boxes of Ziploc bags, on the bag of my Finish dishwasher pods, and on Land-O-Lakes sticks of butter. I’m now clipping them and giving them to my neighbors, who have an elementary-aged kid. It’s crazy to think I was recycling the Box Tops before, which is actually throwing away cash. This is an all-too-common behavior across the country, and the challenge we’re currently working with Box Tops to solve.

Part of our solution was to create the first-ever National Box Tops for Education Week, which is happening this week. Across the country, schools are using materials we created to remind their local communities to clip Box Tops in an effort to collect as many as possible in a single week. One of the activities we’re encouraging schools to execute is a neighborhood clipping drive, where adult volunteers go door-to-door to collect Box Tops from neighbors.

We enlisted Trading Spaces star and avid Box Top clipper Genevieve Gorder to help mobilize local communities as the face of our program. Earlier this month, we hosted a test-market clipping drive in her hometown of Minneapolis, and in just one day, we collected nearly enough Box Tops to match all of last year’s Box Tops earnings for the school. I was so happy, I almost cried when we got the results.

I urge you to participate in National Box Tops for Education Week! Clip Box Tops from participating products, and send them in to your local school. And don’t stop after the week is over, keep it up. DO IT FOR THE KIDS!

Logo lock-up created by Kylee Hawkinson