For Your Next Classroom Event, Try a Potluck

Instead of ordering pizza on your next classroom event, try organizing a potluck. A potlucks is a good idea for several reasons:

1. When each family brings something, the work is evenly distributed between all the participants.
2. Potlucks save money, because they replace the need to order food (such as pizza).
3. Potlucks are a fun way to try different foods and experience new dishes.
4. Potlucks provide easy conversation starters. Talking about the various dishes, who prepared them, how you prepare them in your own kitchen (or how this is the first time you’ve tried that food) are all easy, fun topics.

If the task of organizing a potluck seems daunting, check out UpToUs. UpToUs is a new online network that offers great tools for parents, classrooms and sports teams. One such tool is a volunteering organizer, that allows parents to manage various volunteering opportunities, including snack schedules and potlucks.

The UpToUs tool streamlines the process of organizing a potluck, by enabling the event planner to post an invitation for the event and then post a list of the items needed. Each family can register to bring an item. There’s no need for back and forth emailing to find out who is going to bring what, and the volunteers never have to face the annoying response of “we already have enough side dishes. Would you like to bring dessert instead?”, because they can see which dishes are needed right on the site.

Photo credit: tofutti break