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Birthday Treat Practices

Eli Pinney Elementary School is taking an active role in promoting, supporting, and modeling healthy eating habits for our students. We recognize that our children love to celebrate special events such as birthdays with their peers and teachers! We also recognize at Pinney Elementary that we have a tremendous opportunity to promote healthy behaviors and to show students how to enjoy special moments such as birthdays without making food the focus of our celebrations. In an effort to nurture healthy choices, we will continue our practices for individual student celebrations (birthdays, moving to a new school, etc.) and we will no longer allow students to distribute edible treats for these events. Instead, we have identified other celebration options.

Below are our school’s approved choices for alternatives to food treats:

  1. Book donation to your child’s classroom. (A special “Birthday Book Club” sticker with your child’s name and birthday will be placed inside the book and this book will become part of his/her classroom library.) Parents will be responsible for purchasing the book outside of school. You may want to contact your child’s teacher for book suggestions.
  2. Small tokens such as stickers, birthday pencils, and pencil toppers can be distributed to the class.
  3. Our school store is not open yet, but there will be another option in a few weeks. Students can purchase "Happy Birthday Friend Gift Cards" at the school store and pass them out to classmates.
  4. Donate a game or item to the classroom (see teacher with ideas).

We appreciate your partnership as we implement our new school practices. Please note that any food-item sent to school will NOT be opened or distributed and will be returned home with the child.

For school wide celebrations such as the Harvest Party, Winter Parties, Valentine’s Parties or End of Year Parties, we will continue to share nutritious snacks and will allow classrooms to share one sweet treat. These celebrations are far less frequent than birthday celebrations in classrooms and we will continue to include edible nutritious snacks at these events. Please use the Snack Safe Guide on our school website as a resource for nutritious snacks which also include safe sweet treats.

Another note about celebrating in healthy ways, if you plan to bring in lunch for your child from an outside restaurant (Subway, Wendy's, Hyde Park, etc.), we ask that you bring in the items for you and your child ONLY. Do not bring items for other children at the lunch table. Thank you.

We sincerely appreciate your partnership and understanding as we all work together to promote lifelong healthy lifestyles for our children! Should you have further questions, please feel free to contact the school office.