Community Engagement - Building Relationships, Strengthening Our Schools, Together

Community Engagement—Building Relationships, Strengthening Our Schools, Together

A thriving school isn't built only by what happens inside its classrooms—it grows stronger through the relationships it builds with the people and businesses around it.

In this episode, Thomas and Becky explore practical ways schools can become active members of their neighborhoods instead of simply existing within them. From partnering with local restaurants and businesses to collaborating with neighboring schools, senior centers, and community organizations, they share real examples of how authentic relationships create opportunities that benefit students, families, staff, and the broader community.

You'll discover how community engagement strengthens enrollment through word-of-mouth, creates meaningful learning opportunities, provides valuable resources, and helps schools become trusted neighborhood institutions. Most importantly, you'll be encouraged to take small, intentional steps that can lead to lasting partnerships and a stronger sense of belonging for everyone connected to your school.

Whether you're looking to improve marketing, enrich student experiences, or simply become a more visible presence in your community, this episode offers practical ideas you can begin implementing right away.

If you need help with developing your community engagement plan, please schedule a time to talk with us today. https://bit.ly/Build-IT-Better-Together

To receive a copy of the Catholic School Excellence Toolkit - A Reflective Workbook for Visionary Catholic School Leaders,  click here. It is the companion to the podcast: In Search of Catholic School Excellence.

Becky Wong has been a teacher, admin, tech coordinator and innovator in Catholic Schools for over 25 years.  She not only assists schools as part of the Tech Team but has been instrumental in guiding the Archdiocese of San Francisco as it navigates the edtech decisions and ever-changing landscape of classroom technology. 

The In Search of Catholic School Excellence Podcast is brought to you by I Love My Tech Team. 

When technology doesn’t work, Catholic school leaders lose time, trust, and momentum. We partner with schools to restore reliable systems, empower teachers, and create the foundation for innovative learning centered on students.

Lead Your School Into What’s Possible with I Love My Tech Team.

Restoring What’s Broken. Advancing What’s Possible.

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What is In Search of Catholic School Excellence?

In Search of Catholic School Excellence
Exploring the programs, people, and practices making a difference in Catholic education. Join host Thomas Boles as we hear from principals, teachers, and innovators shaping the future of Catholic schools. Whether you're a leader looking for ideas or an advocate for Catholic education, this show is your guide to what’s working—and why it matters.

Be sure to check out the show notes, as each episode comes with a companion guide to help you implement the ideas discussed during the episodes.

 Transcription is done automatically. Please forgive errors.

Hi, folks. Welcome back to another episode. This week I'm joined by my favorite podcast host, co-host- ... Becky Wong. Becky, thanks for hanging out. Thank you for inviting me, again. So this week we're talking about community engagement, and this, I know we had talked in the past about parent engagement and how we want to make sure that they're a part of the, the fabric of the school and make sure they feel like they're home there as well.

But we can't ignore the folks who are just outside our door, and so that's what this episode's gonna be all about, community engagement. If you think about who's in your neighborhood, and you can take your zip code if, especially if you don't have a huge zip code, it becomes a little bit easier. Think how many businesses do you know?

How many people live in your neighborhood that actually go to your school? Where do the kids in your neighborhood actually go to school instead if they're not coming to your place? And so the more we get to know our community, the more that we have a presence in the community, I think it's a lot easier to promote our school and to control the story that gets told about our school, right?

So that's what today's episode's all about, and- I wanna tell a quick little story about one of our schools that started out with this. So you think about how you're going to you're thinking about how you wanna run your, say, your lunch program, right? Or something like that.

We had a school who was reconsidering how their lunch program was gonna go, and this was before the days where a truck would show up and deliver you lunches, right? So this is a while back. But trying to figure out how to make that happen. It always had somebody in the neighborhood who would a parent who would come and cook lunches.

But at some point, that person, you know, timed out, retired, it was time to move on. And it just so happened that they had a relationship with a a family who lived in the neighborhood. The kids did not go to the school, but they were part of the parish. In any case, this vendor down the street was able to provide lunches for the school at a reduced rate, and they g- were able to pull together five days a week of lunches that was a easy menu.

It was like, at that point, it was, like, five bucks a lunch or something like that. It was just... The school could make a little bit of money, the place made a little bit of money, and the food was always delivered 'cause it was so close. So it's just a win-win. And I bet you any time somebody walked in that restaurant, th- they were talking positively about the school because it was a very unique situation, but it made all the difference for each, each other, right?

Helping the school out with the business with the lunch program, and the business out with some more business that they probably wouldn't have made at lunchtime. So these little things are, an example. And it-- I know that we're hearkening back to an old time where all the kids lived in the neighborhood, you knew everybody at every store, but it doesn't mean that's a lost art.

And we can talk about that today, about how do we get back to that place where the neighborhood like Mr. Rogers says, "Who are the people in your neighborhood?" You should know the people in your neighborhood. So that's what we're all talking about today. So Becky, my first question to you is- in your various school experiences, did your school have a concerted effort to get outside? Well when I was teaching, we were in Chinatown. So like you said a local business, i- it's usually a parent would provide lunches at like a discounted rate. And they were so reliable. But those families with their children, they graduate.

Sometimes their businesses close or whatnot, circumstances change. So there's always someone out there to help. And the school based out of Chinatown was, like, so convenient. There's like a million businesses there. We even had a old folks' home or senior center nearby, so we'd go there and sing Christmas songs to them.

Oh, I love that. So there was definitely a relationship. But when I moved to my second school we were considered a commuter school. There wasn't a lot around. It was mostly parents just did drop off. There's not a lot of businesses- Mm-hmm ... Within eye shot. But then there are some housing development and then more businesses grew.

And I almost feel that was, like, one of their weak points of our school where we didn't go beyond our few blocks to look. We did develop a relationship with the schools because there are I believe three other schools within the same block of our school, and our location. And across the street is the senior center.

And we did build relationships with those people, and it did work out in good and bad ways. One thing happened where when I first started as the tech coordinator there, when we had DSL. So when we contacted Comcast, the build-out was like $30,000 just to get internet. It's like such a basic necessity, but it was like $30,000.

Who has $30,000? So we reached out to the other schools, and they're like, "Eh, we weren't, we're not interested." And this was, like, back in like 2011. DSL was fine back then, but- ... No one predicted COVID. No one predicted everything else in the world. So luckily, we were able to negotiate the build-out price down.

But later on, a few years later, those schools reached out to us like, "Hey, how did you get Comcast?" And we're like, "Oh, yeah, the build-out." So had we partnered with those schools and even the the senior center, the build-out would've been a lot cheaper for all of us since we're just down the block.

And so definitely reaching out to the community has many benefits. It's not just to get donors or whatnot. It's for logistics and just basic necessities like internet. Having the power of a group makes a big difference Oh yeah, I think it's especially in those situations where you could have made, that relationship could have made things so much easier for everybody.

Right. It'd be a win-win situation. I've seen that with the parishes. There's in the parishes they'll often have a group of all of the different denominations in the neighborhood- Mm-hmm ... will have a get-together. So you've got the, the Baptists and the maybe the Buddhists or the, you know- Mm-hmm

whatever it might be. Like, all of those folks are actually getting together and talking about I guess maybe not Buddhists. It's probably all Christians, Christian, Yes ... denominations. But in any case, they're getting together to talk about what's going on in their churches. Their various- Mm-hmm

denomination churches. And I think that's great. That's a great thing to be able to talk to people who have a different faith or a different mission- Mm-hmm ... than you might have, but you have similar problems. And so that's one way of creating a board- Mm-hmm ... the way that you could have done with the other schools and be like, "Hey we have a security issue on this area.

There's a traffic issue on this area." Oh, for sure. Right? Where you could build a team of some sort to, to be able to at least talk through those problems together so it doesn't become a bunch of fiefdoms trying to all solve the same problem and wasting tons of energy and money.

Oh, yeah ... yeah. It was s- speaking of partnering with the schools and just talking about just y- and sometimes it even leads to politics and whatnot. A few years back we partnered with a school and we had a peace march, and it was great to see the kids from the s- neighboring school come out with our kids.

And j- we just met across the street where the statue was. And we just we gave the students a voice, and that they're, they don't feel alone, they're not isolated. They're with other kids of the same age, and they were able to just talk about things that were happening around the world that was, it was bothering them.

Yeah. And that's huge. I mean, just to give the kids another lens for what's happening. Like- Mm-hmm ... we're in our own little place, but there's there's kids down the street who could otherwise be me, right? Right. And so they, that, being able to share and get to know each other, I think that's a wonderful thing too.

So it's to circle back here, it's not just about, When we're doing any of these things- Mm-hmm ... the community engagement, the parent engagement, it's not just about what can I get out of it, right? Right. But it's also about building a s- a more solid foundation that will, of course, benefit your school.

And the, the results of that can be things that we can't even imagine yet. But it's the right thing to do. I think if you're, if that seems like it's crazy I can think back to our schools in North Beach my old school- You know, partnering with the other schools that there would've been a conversation for that.

Mm-hmm. But at some point there's you get outside of like what can we really do? We're the one Catholic school, there's a bunch of public schools- Mm-hmm ... different varieties. How much more can we collaborate? Well, just having a good relationship to talk about, "Hey, what's going on?"

Or, "What did you see?" Especially in this, like I think on the security level, I think it's huge. But that- Oh, yeah. For sure ... you can talk about things that are troubling you. And if somebody's still not convinced, Mm-hmm ... listening to this from a marketing standpoint how people talk about your school I think is a big thing, and you wanna control that as much as you can.

You can't necessarily block every possible negative comment that can possibly come through. Mm-hmm. But you can be in charge of how that story gets told, especially if you're talking about it. And I think if you're talking to the people in the neighborhood and you're making a great impression, your kids are participating in the parades, the neighborhood functions- Oh, right

you got a table at the neighborhood booth, you're going to the preschool things in the neighbor- like you're just showing up and being a positive person. Mm-hmm. Like that bodes well, because you're just building a good thing. Sitting in a coffee shop, someone says I wanna come to the school."

What are they gonna say? Or, "I'm looking for a school." Right. What are the best schools in this neighborhood even, right? In that, that one little neighborhood there's probably they have five choices within walking distance. And why would you choose one or the other, oh, right. And hopefully somebody in that coffee shop s- says, "Hey we had a great experience," or, "My kid's there now.

We love it. You should really come check it out. At least come see if you like it." Right? Oh, right. As opposed to, "Oh, I don't know anything about that school." Right? Or the the the corner store. I can remember growing up, the guy at the corner store was, like, a mentor to me. But, like- Mm-hmm

he had all the neighborhood news. Oh, yes. So if you asked him What school should you go to?" He would send... He would say come to my school." What happened when he finally had kids? Oh, right. He s- he sent them to the school. Sent them there. So y- it's it's important how that message gets out there, and I think that's kind of where we're going with all this.

It's good to build up relationships but it's also, it's it's an opportunity that you can control. Oh, for sure. And the biggest endorsement or the strongest enrollment strategy is always word of mouth. And it only goes so far w- in your parent community, they're friends of friends, and eventually people their kids age out of elementary school, and y- you don't want that relationship to die.

So who's going to be there for you? It's the community shops the businesses around you. They usually stick around, and they know you. And I almost feel like they know the real- Yeah. ... you or the real kids, where they can tell you Oh, hey," oh yeah, those kids come around my shop all the time.

They're great." yeah. Yeah. I think in the old neighborhood if we would've gone out of, gone out of the fence and gone off to get food or something somewhere, or we got into trouble somewhere- ... There were enough people who knew who we were, whether they were the parents of other kids or if they were just community members who were attached to the parish.

They would call the school and rat us out. So that's- That's the best ... let's be honest. We- yeah you don't necessarily wanna think about your kids causing trouble. Right. But how nice is it to think that they say it takes a village to raise a kid. Well, well what a- what- we got a village, right?

Someone's watching your kids, right? Yeah. They're five minutes late, but where were they? Yeah. Picking up coffee at the coffee shop. Right. Yeah, and then, and that's, I mean, for all these little things it doesn't have to be a major investment. I mean, obviously it takes time. Mm-hmm. But even, I went and met with the principal.

We chose one of the coffee shops in the neighborhood, and we would s- go- Mm-hmm ... and we could have our conversation about what we wanted to do outside of the school building so we could have a little bit more friendly conversation you choosing to have your meetings there or choosing to get your catering there- Oh, yeah

choosing to invite like having a food fair. Mm-hmm. Right? You could definitely make some friends there. But you have your big festival, like inviting the restaurants to be a part of it. It's all a way of making good relationships. And those things can come back. Mm-hmm. I think- I just n- Oh, sorry.

Go ahead. Oh, sure. Go. I just noticed something this week, and I always feel like we mention food in all our podcasts. I was just in the office- We love food. I know. I was just in the office just doing my usual tech support stuff, fixing a Chromebook, and I noticed a kid came in and said, "Oh, no I forgot my lunch."

So the office calls the cafe down the street. 15 minutes later, someone from the coffee shop shows up with a lunch. It's so nice. Back in my day, we'll tell the kid like, "Oh, do you have any snacks?" Or everyone would pool together their, whatever, their extras. Oh, here's an apple. Here's some Goldfish."

But having that was so... It's so reassuring as a parent where you're like, "Oh, no, I thought they had ordered a school lunch, but they didn't," s- Kid is still taken care of. This k- kid is still taken care of. The office staff was, like, asking the kid, they go, "Oh, will you eat this? Are you allergic to anything?"

So- That was like the nicest thing I've s- seen. I was like- Well, think about how many things had to go right for that to happen. One- Mm-hmm ... Obviously the kid comes down to the office, right? So there's like- Right ... the teacher knows that we can solve this problem, so that's huge. Mm-hmm. Two, the office doesn't lay into the kid.

Right. Obviously, maybe gave him a little stern like, "Hey, you forgot something," or like- Right ... It's understandable. But we- we're gonna solve this for you," right? Right. They have a relationship with the coffee shop up on the corner- Right ... To be able to call in with a like a account on credit or however they need to do it to get the lunch.

The coffee shop was willing to take that order and deliver. This wasn't like a DoorDash situation. Right. It was just one lunch. They had already dropped off all the other lunches too. And the office staff called the parent and just got permission because they'll get charged for it. But I was like, it was such a smooth transition, and the kid was taken care of.

She looked a little sad or worried at first. Oh, of course. But it was like- From a parent perspective, to know that my child's school will take care of my kid when I've forgotten something or I was running late or whatever happened, that you can't buy that, yeah. That's really great.

I mean there's so many good things about that. I mean, that's the kind of place that you'd wanna work, right? Like- Mm-hmm ... If, not that you're gonna tell that story. I mean, you happened to witness it, right? Right. But like as a principal, you're not gonna tell that story to your families 'cause that might just be a little bit extra-

and also might be embarrassing- Yeah ... or whatever. But, like- Oh, right ... That's such a family situation where like- Mm-hmm ... You go to a friend's house when you're a kid and like- Mm-hmm ... Grandma's in the kitchen. She's like, "Let me make you something, honey." you have that kind of feeling at your school.

That's the kind of place you wanna work. That's the kind of- place you wanna grow up. That's the k- kind of place you wanna continue to be a part of, even after your kids are gone. That's a huge win for that school. We won't name names. Yeah. But that's amazing. I love to hear that.

But that's- Oh ... the kind of relationship you can build. I mean, I would think that as a- For me, like somebody who's constantly on the run, if I was a principal and I had totally forgotten, yeah can I just call you every now and then and I'll place an order and I'm you just charge us for it?

Can we just set- Right ... this relationship up? Because there's gonna be a moment where we're gonna need that. Oh, absolutely. And, or even just saying for somebody who, I love to eat out, like we always talk about food. So if I was in one place every day obviously if the, your cafeteria food or whatever's coming for lunch is good enough, that's great.

No problem there. But in the situation where you've got like the opportunity to take like just a little break- Mm-hmm ... and have food, to have five places in your neighborhood that you feel comfortable to go and sit and eat and just detach for a few minutes, or that you can call and be able to get that order.

And so it's a personal thing rather than a DoorDash thing, where you're like, you know- Oh ... you can order from anywhere, right? It doesn't really matter. So ah that's such a great story. I love that. So what do our listeners do if they don't have like local businesses or a nice deli nearby?

Well, let's start with the default, and I know that we, we- talked about this before in our parent engagement episode. You should check that out, folks, if you haven't listened to that. Mm-hmm. Basic level, you should acknowledge collect the information from your parents. What do they do?

Mm-hmm. And you should acknowledge them for those things. If you can use them in different ways without necessarily always asking for 100%, you know- Right ... a donation. Get discounts here and there. You'd be paying- Mm-hmm ... for some of these things anyway. Mm-hmm. Taking the, treating the faculty.

We've talked about faculty meetings or- Mm-hmm ... We've talked about parent meetings making sure the faculty is fed. Like you can- Right ... share the wealth among parents' organizations. But you should find that information out. You should share that with the community. I know that Sarah High School does a very good job of this.

At the end of all their newsletters- Mm-hmm ... they have a link to a page that says Please support our parent businesses." Oh, nice. And then there's a link to, like, all the parent businesses. Now, obviously, there's some sort of promotional deal in there. They've made a little bit of money off of that deal.

But, like- Mm-hmm ... still very cool that every email, like the newsletter every week, that is included. And so I think that's a really cool way for, one, for the business to support the parent to support the school, but also the school to support the b- the business, so the parent. So that's basic level.

You should know your parent stuff. You should use your parent stuff as much as you can. Mm-hmm. But here's the plan. Yes. So I always talk about it with the ZIP Code, and you have to kind of be careful with the ZIP Code because the ZIP Code could be huge. The San Francisco ZIP Code is a small area.

Mm-hmm. And s- still a lot of businesses in, in, in those ZIP Codes. Mm-hmm. But a ZIP Code, like in Michigan, is gonna be enormous. There, there still might not be- Yes ... there still might not be as many businesses as there would be in San Francisco. But whether you're doing this by ZIP Code or natural boundaries of neighborhood, I think it's very important.

Whatever the walking distance is, and you can make this small if you want, but- Mm-hmm Right off the bat, figure out, get a list, and this is something that you can pull very easily. The internet's gonna help you out, especially with AI, can definitely pull this for you. Right. But a list of all of the businesses in the ZIP code.

And you go through and and cross off any that you already know about or that you already have a relationship with. It shouldn't say know about, 'cause you probably know about a lot of them. Mm-hmm. But any of the ones you already have a relationship with, 'cause you've already done that work. Right.

But maybe you start off with a thank you to them. Yes. Just send them a nice little postcard. "Hey, we really appreciate that we're associated with each other. We love what you do. We appreciate all the support you've given us. Thank you." Right. That's something you do once a year, twice a year maybe.

Like- Mm-hmm ... that's a huge deal. And definitely go visit those folks, 'cause those are gonna be the easiest ones to do. But the next level, and we've talked about this in recruitment, how many preschools? How many, like- Oh, for sure ... how many shady preschools, quiet on the under preschools do you have ... in your neighborhood?

And are you friends with them? Mm-hmm. Are they bringing kids to you for your pre-K classes, et cetera? So I would put that at and give that group to my marketing folks, but I would also maybe set up an event where we invite all those folks to come learn about it first- Mm-hmm ... and then have a parent fair for them.

So that's part of a different episode, but like- Mm-hmm ... that's a big chunk of people that you wanna pull out. Then I would start you can kind of do if you looked at a map, you can kind of do concentric circles and just figure out- Mm-hmm ... Within the block, within two blocks, within three blocks, right?

And I'm thinking about one of your schools, which would've been- Much further away from civilization, let's say. There's not a whole lot of businesses right on your block, right? Right. So you definitely have to work a little bit at this. So maybe that's a little bit more random. So maybe you start off with, okay, let me look at some of the restaurants.

Especially if our parent group is more of one the restaurants are more of one kind of cuisine. Mm-hmm. Maybe I'm gonna go find a different kind of cuisine, right? In North Beach where most of my examples come from, Italian food is everywhere, right? So you're- You could get Italian food donated, but that may not be a special thing in that neighborhood because there's 1,000 Italian restaurants.

What might be kind of fun is to do it something different something from a different neighborhood. In all these recent years, tacos are all the latest rage. Well, what if you could do, Well, man, now we're getting on events, but, You could have tacos from around the world, right?

The idea of like- Right ... a little small hand, a hand food, right? Anyway. Or a food festival. I digress. Yeah. The funny thing is that I felt like my school was in the middle of nowhere, just people just dropped off. It's just a lot of cars. But if we really look, it was right next to San Francisco State, and right next to Stonestown, which is a shopping mall.

There are, like- Right ... dentists, doctor's office. It's like- Or you go up to Mission, where there's a billion other things. Right. But that's like- Or behind you, there's another shopping center I'm like, "Wait a second." there's a lot. There are plenty of businesses around us. But we didn't look outside of our two-block radius.

So it's just more of- Hey, let's just take the first step and look what's around us. Yeah. And you're like, "Oh." So, so simple, right? Right. But then you can kind of break this down further. So obviously you get all the restaurants. Mm-hmm. And now I would say with any of the restaurants, think about what...

Can you create an event for them or- just a natural thing. Can we use them for catering for different events? Oh, okay. And slowly make those relationships. I would definitely go and visit them. Mm-hmm. And y- face to face because if they can associate you with a face with your school, that's also helpful.

Right. But they also they sh- probably recognize the uniform. Yes. And so they've got some sort of relationship. So get that in person and then that's a roster of places. But then you start- looking at well who are the dentists, right? Right. Should we have... I know we used to do we do an op- A guy from my class- Right

still goes back to our school- Mm-hmm ... and he does the eye checks for kids to make sure- Oh, yeah ... that their their vision's all good. And there's no hard upsell. He's not trying to sell anything, but he's like- No ... " You're good." They do the same thing they do the same thing with lice with the little ones and...

Like there's lots of services that you can pull from those people. Mm-hmm. You can pull them for career fairs. You can pull them for other events where you might wanna have a specialist. Also my favorite part of this is you find out these these businesses that are in your neighborhood that are kind of like unique and interesting, right?

Oh, like what? And... Yeah. So like for example and I'm... hopefully somebody out there doesn't know this company because I'm guessing what they do. But, in one of these, in one of our locations there is a rent a parent Oh, I've never heard of that. Right. And it's like the, I think the idea is it's partnering grandparents with- Oh, okay

younger people for various- things, right? And so- Oh, right ... it's like it gives the older person a chance to do something that they love with somebody who's young. But you know, it facilitates that thing. Oh, that's so cool. Perhaps it's an acting class. I don't know. I don't know. Is it like- No, but like- It's kinda like a big brother and sister sort of thing- Exactly.

Exactly ... but for grownups, so I think it was, that was their version of it. But that would be something interesting because for career day or you find out about the military organization, like the- Right ... the Veterans Foundation in your neighborhood. You find out there's all these very cool historical deals like in Japantown in San Francisco, right?

Mm-hmm. For another school that we have that's pretty close to there there's a lot of really cool folks that are doing things. Mm-hmm. And I love your idea of the service. You went to the old folks home, right? That's something that- North Beach we were able to do, too. Walk up and do that.

Perhaps there's a, a gardening group. Whatever. You find out these things- Oh, right ... and you can just integrate more and more in your school. I just heard from one of our principals yesterday- Mm-hmm ... about how they were gonna get a, A, like a miniature greenhouse donated to the school- Oh

by one of, by another organization. But like- how are you gonna run that? Are you just gonna throw some, you know- They built a relationship, and so now that's gonna be part of the program. You can enhance your program. Oh, that's so cool. Ex- we, you know how we always talk about STEM and like there's only so much you can do, but to have a greenhouse, that is fantastic.

Yeah. Something students never get a chance to go out and see nature. That's crazy. Yeah. Especially so, and then once, as we go further- Mm-hmm ... you then, like which alumni are still in your neighborhood? Mm-hmm. And are you promoting them as part of our alumni talk? You can go download that episode too.

Oh, nice. Right? Are you making those kind of connections? Are you helping your kids when they go off to high school? Are you still a part of their lives? The they're alumni. Mm-hmm. You can help them with internships 'cause you're like, "Hey, guess what? You wanted to get into whatever."

I mean, our, in North Beach, once again, the old style would've been you would've had the old guys giving the young folks jobs. Mm-hmm. Right? Because they're like, " I'm just gonna call down to the school or the Boys & Girls Club and I'm gonna find out about some kid who might work out for the situation 'cause we're need, looking to hire."

The fact that there is that relationship, in that case it was an alum, but why not have that relationship forever? I'm just gonna call down to this place. Do you know any kids of high school age now, obviously out of your school, but of high school age that could come and work? We're looking for people.

We want good people. That's why we call you." that's the kind of thing that you wanna foster. It takes time, but it's such a great opportunity. Yeah, we had a similar situation where one of our parents current parents they're a defense attorney, so they came in and did some after school classes for kids.

So they taught the kids about law. And one of my friends whose son goes to the school, he got ... When he went to high school, they still had a relationship together from the class, were like, "Oh, hey, I'm interested in going into law," and he got an internship for a couple of summers. So that was fantastic, and he's ready to go off to college now, and is trying to decide Oh, what's a good path?"

And got advice on like what are good schools to go to just to move in that direction and and understanding like what are the different areas of law that he could get into. So yeah, there's plenty of internship connections. And so it's not always about donating to the school. Right. It could be time and resources and having those connections.

I just love like the, this, what you were just talking about in terms of like the lawyer. Mm-hmm. That, that can be a career connection for somebody, but like that's also another way to engage your parents. Oh, right. What if you could offer financial literacy? What if you could offer a night where you have some lawyers pro bono?

Mm-hmm. Who like can just come down, and like you could offer these services discreetly if it needs to be a hush-hush thing. Oh, right. But like financial literacy, would you wanna just would you be willing to meet somebody? And that I'm pretty sure you could get any financial person, any lawyer to give- Oh

that initial call, because maybe they can help them, and that helps them with their business. But like you're providing that service for parents- Oh, right ... without necessarily getting involved in yourself and their like personal problems. But like that's just making connections for people I think is huge.

In the old days, we'd have that the business cards or we'd have the Rolodex with all these people in it. Yes. Because the internet's so huge and we've got Yelp and all these other things, like- Mm-hmm ... that Rolodex is almost too big now. Right. So let's shrink that down- Absolutely ... to our neighborhood as a starting place, our parents, our neighborhood.

Mm-hmm. And like build from there, and then you can find figure things out. But I'll tell you this much too. Mm-hmm. The other reason why you might get to these, know these folks is when you're looking for a plumber- Oh, right ... Electrician, right? Something- Yeah. You go you might be able to find those folks in your neighborhood, but I guarantee the restaurants- Mm-hmm

they have all had some plumbing problems. Oh. And they have all done it cheaply. So, you know- Or reasonably priced. Yeah, exactly. Or at least it's someone you could trust to keep calling back because our schools are in old buildings, right? Yeah. Things fall apart. The electricity, electrical panel blow up.

Or hopefully they don't blow up, but things- ... things happen. Yeah. Sparks happen. But I mean, that's a, and that's information. Once you're on a level of trust you're sharing all that kind of stuff, and that, that's really huge. I think it's, I think it's wonderful when you can make those relationships 'cause as I said before, I think the story that people tell you about your school- is something that you can control at least some of the time, if not all the time. And by you being out in the community and getting to know folks, there's so much there. So I think, yeah, you had talked earlier about some field trips field trip opportunities in there. Being able to use folks for prizes.

Oh, yeah, prizes. I had one school, they just had their walkathon. And instead of giving them the knick-knacks that break from wherever the principal contacted the local coffee shop and said, "Oh, hey do you have gift cards? Because we'd like to buy $5 gift cards from you."

And it's not asking for a donation, but just to get the kids out to the community and, and the coffee shop didn't go up to the school, but she just knows of the local coffee shop, and she wants to spread the good word about the community. And- Yeah ... th- that's the prize. If the kids raise so much money, they get the $5 gift card, and then they'll go to that coffee shop, learn how to buy things, get change.

It was such a great conversation when I learned more about it. I was like, "Oh, that is fantastic. We don't need another fidget whatever that breaks in two seconds." Right. Right. Well I think there's an opportunity, too. Like you, you just mentioned another one. Mm-hmm. Is you're building that relationship.

So now you can almost set up the experiences. As a kid- Yeah ... like, when we would take the bus, I remember the, the director would each give us, our money. So we had to pay- Mm-hmm ... the person on the bus, right? Right. So back in the day we'd just walk on. But you need to learn how to do this because- Right

at some point you might be riding the bus by yourself, right? Life skills. Everything. Yeah. Everything is an opportunity. So let's go. We're gonna go have this conversation with this person. I know that a lot of the kids a lot of first grade classrooms will take their kids to the library, right?

Oh, right. So we're gonna go learn how to , where's the library? Here's the librarian. Did you meet them? What's their name? Like- Right ... You're walking them through those basic things. But as we get older some of those other things too, mm-hmm. Hey, let's talk about financial literacy.

Are you saving any money? Do you just spend everything that you get? Did you earn any of it, or are you just milking your parents? We can run them through these things that are little life lessons, and I think there's so many opportunities for this. Oh, absolutely. Anyway, before we get off- ... onto 1,000 tangents about all the cool things we could do, let's kind of come back to it.

And we have, I think we have four steps for anybody out there who wants to try to do this, right? We have four reminders that we wanna give them. So- Right ... walk us through it, Becky First, just do your research. Who are your school families, it's, and usually that's included in your applications where you're like, oh, occupation.

You get their contact information. Just to get an idea of oh, who, what do our parents do? And that's actually an important information because that is your target audience, whether you gear curriculum towards that so that your kids even know what their parents do. And we can reach out to them.

And like you said, as your school could celebrate those businesses. Secondly, check your local businesses. Look beyond, across the street, a block. And this is for the listeners. Can you name five businesses near your school? 30 seconds. Yeah. Just think what are the five businesses near your school?

What's ... And what's your relationship to them if at all? Right. And when was the last time you visited them? Did you take a walk down there? And sometimes it's too far. Do they have your postcards? Do they have your postcards? Yes. Did, do you have a flyer, do you have a event? Cippino, did you send them a copy of your flyer to advertise?

Super basic, right? Being visible whether it's your principal, your teachers, and I always say that your students in school uniforms, best advert- best free advertisement. They're in the neighborhood, they take walks just visibility, like how often do you just walk down the street pay visit to the local stores.

And not just restaurants, but just think of like laundry mats dry cleaners corner markets. There's lots of places we can visit. Yeah, and you can start off with the, the peculiar ones first- Mm-hmm ... if it all seems overwhelming. For a neighborhood that's got- Right ... a billion things in there, just pick and just a couple here and there.

Just start small. Yeah, and if you're not close walking distance to any business, you can always give people a phone call. Don't just send an email because a lot of that gets disregarded. But just a simple phone call just to hear your voice, say, "Hi, how are you doing? I'm from the awesome school."

Right? Saint awesome. Just int- just introduce yourself invite them to... You always say Hey, we have a big event." Invite someone, yes, I mean, without going off another tangent- Mm-hmm ... that we always undersell the tables or whatever. Right. Why not have a table and invite you have a table of 10, that's five couples from- Right

five businesses that support you. Local businesses. Yeah, that doesn't hurt you. You've already, you already paid for it. Right. But like the goodwill that you can make out of that- Mm-hmm ... I think is super huge. So as much as you s- as all the good you send out in the world, you're gonna receive it back too, so.

All right, so- Did I miss any? What's that? Do you have any? Did I miss any? No I think that's all good. I think those are everything. If- we talked about a lot of the episodes that we've done in the past. Mm-hmm. But definitely check out the parent engagement, which is leads into this. We talked about it in fundraising.

Oh ... and even, we even talked a little about alumni. But if you really wanna listen to somebody who is doing this, not just us talking about in theory- Mm-hmm ... You should listen to the Theresa Rothstein episode where she talks about the family that she's built at the school that they've built at the school.

But her community outreach as part of that episode is pretty amazing. She is definitely- Oh, great ... one of the leaders in that. Oh, yeah. I loved visiting that school. It's- Yeah ... it's such a nice school. There is definitely a spirit and you can see it started from the leadership, and you see it in the kids.

Yeah. It's very intentional about their community outreach. Mm-hmm. So I think that's a huge piece. If you need help, we're happy to help you with this. This is something we've done in the past for our own schools.

Oh, nice. We'd love to help you out with your school with it. So reach out if you got questions, you just wanna even talk about it. Know information's always free, so no harm, no foul in just talking about these things. So anyway, Becky, thank you for joining me today and for all of your knowledge and sharing your stories.

Oh, thank you. I love your stories. It's always fun when we talk about the good things, right? Right. That's the best part about this podcast. We're talking about only good things. Oh, yes. It just makes you smile. And hear about how our kids are doing so well and just hearing all the great things are happening in our schools.

Yeah. I can't wait till our next episode. I'll see you next week. Okay. Talk soon. All right, bye. Bye.