Ridgebury Elementary School

In addition to our fundraisers and events, the RES PTA supports and encourages efforts to get all of our children involved in our community and to grow as individuals.

Sandwich Making, an effort that was spearheaded by long-time RES music teacher Glen Lebetkin, aims to help our students realize that there are people in our community who are less fortunate than they are.  On the third Wednesday of each month, RES parents and students meet in the cafeteria before school to prepare approximately 100 bag lunches. These lunches are then delivered to the Dorothy Day Hospitality House soup kitchen in Danbury. For many visitors to Dorothy Day, the lunches are the only food they'll eat until they come back for dinner the next day. This program has been ongoing for the past 15 years.

Students of all ages are encouraged to come be a part of this community effort to feed the hungry. We need bag decorators, sandwich makers and lunch packers! Watch for the Constant Contact email ~~ the Save the Date section will include our upcoming meeting date. For more information, please contact Karen Coughlin, Donna Klinkowize or Michelle Budicini

Kids Care Club of Ridgebury Elementary School was initiated in 1996 and is a local chapter of the national Kids Care Clubs organization supported by the Points of Light Foundation.  Kids Care Club is a program designed to develop compassion and the spirit of service and philanthropy in elementary and middle school aged youth.  To that end, we provide children with hands-on opportunities to help others in our local and global communities.

Some of our past projects have included:  snacks for soldiers in Iraq, Thanksgiving baskets for needy families, the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe project, bake sales for endangered species and First Books change collection.  Every year we participate in the Holiday Hope Chest (a.k.a. Holiday Shoeboxes) collection, assembly and distribution.  This has traditionally been our biggest service program and has benefitted thousands of needy children in area shelters and foster homes as well as victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami. 

Kids Care Club is open to all Ridgebury Elementary students.  We meet about four times a year to organize our service projects.  We especially need older students to lead the younger ones and to write articles for The Rex Text and The Ridgefield Press.  Mothers of students are encouraged to attend the meetings as well, which are held after school in the cafeteria.

Anyone interested in joining may come to a meeting or contact Kristen Burns or Laura St. Laurent. Our upcoming meetings will be announced in the Constant Contact emails.

The Imagination Station is an opportunity for all Ridgebury students to have their writing and drawings celebrated!  This is a student-run venture, with 5th grade students serving as editorial and layout editors as well as reporters and students of all ages contributing their creative works. 

Between January and June of each school year, students are encouraged to submit their creative writing and drawings via the mailbox outside Mrs. Silva and Ms. Myjak's offices.  The submissions are then reviewed by the student editorial board and layout editors who decide where to "celebrate" the writing.  Submissions are posted on the bulletin boards outside the library, books written by our students are placed in the library's Book Nook, and special pieces of writing that demonstrate creativity, well-expanded ideas and excellent word choice frequently appear in the student newspaper, The Rex Text. 

Encourage your child to "mail" their submissions.  Kindergarten students can draw their own stories and label in print whatever they can.  Parents can also scribe their children's own words and add them to the child's pictures.  Parents of older students can encourage them to submit a writing piece, whether it is a poem, a short story, a song, an informational piece, etc.

The opening of the Imagination Station will be announced in Constant Contact emails.

Click here for the Imagination Station submission form.