The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Cherry Chase says soup is good food for thought

By Katherine Petersen

Sunnyvale resident Lainy Snellbacher has turned label-cutting into an art form. The Cherry Chase parent clipped and counted more than 13,000 labels and lids last year as part of the Campbell's Labels for Education fundraiser.

Cherry Chase earned an eight-station cassette listening center for its library, as well as dictionaries, film to take yearbook pictures and other small items with its 14,000 points, Snellbacher said.

"It's stuff we didn't have to buy," she said. "If we could collect that many last year, just imagine how many are being thrown away."

Schools can choose from a variety of items in the catalog, including telescopes, cameras, computers and software. For example, an HP Desk Jet printer costs 35,000 points, Snellbacher said.

Cherry Chase Principal Alice Pounds appreciates the new items because her school doesn't have a lot of extra money to spend.

"I would like to have more of the listening centers," she said. "It allows a small groups of children to listen to a story with earphones and follow with their eyes."

With a computer in every Cherry Chase classroom, Pounds hopes to get some software with this year's points.

The label program lasts through March, and the school receives its prizes before the end of the year.

This year, Snellbacher hopes to get labels from people outside the school's population. People can drop labels in boxes either at Cherry Chase School or at the Cherry Chase Safeway at the corner of Bernardo Avenue and El Camino Real. The store also offers forms in its coupon books for families to send in and receive extra label points.

Labels can come from any of these: Campbell's soups and tomato juices; Franco-American gravies and pastas; Pepperidge Farm products; Swanson canned and frozen foods; and lids from Vlasic pickles, Prego spaghetti sauce and Pace picante sauce.

[ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ]

This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 5, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.