PTA Hosts the Holiday Boutique

by Markella Giannakopoulos, staff reporter

Nina's Sweet Creations was just one of the various vendors from the PTA's Holiday Boutique that was held on December 7, 2013. "I liked how the vendors sold all different things," 6th grader, Ashley Leto said. Photo by Markella Giannakopoulos. — Nina’s Sweet Creations was just one of the various vendors from the PTA’s Holiday Boutique that was held on December 7, 2013. “I liked how the vendors sold all different things,” 6th grader, Ashley Leto said. Photo by Markella Giannakopoulos.

One of the PTA’s missions is to raise money that benefits the students. As a way to raise the money, they hosted the second annual holiday boutique on Saturday, December 7th in the school cafeteria from 10 in the morning until 3 p.m.

“I came to do my Christmas shopping and I enjoyed the experience,” parent of Michelle Psaltakis Monica Korb said.

“I did [have fun]. I thought that there was a great turnout of students from our school and more of the community. We had a better variety [of vendors] than last year,” junior Susan Pistone said.

The PTA worked really hard to plan and execute the boutique.

“It took many months. We made vendor registration forms and had vendors reserving tables as far back as October. When we had all the vendors, we started assigning tables,” vice president of the PTA Holly O’Neil said, “I really think it was a success. We had a lot of foot traffic and the vendors are selling a lot of beautiful things.”

There was a diversity of ways people found out about the holiday boutique. The PTA employed the use of robocalls, postcards sent to people’s houses, ads taken out in the Bayside Times, flyers all around the community, and through word of mouth.

“I found out through Ingrid Guapisaca [PTA member] and because I am a designer, I look for fairs of this type in order to sell my products and get the word out,” independent designer for Origami Owl Nancy Shea said.

The boutique had a few surprising celebrity guests: Judy Markowitz from Energized Realty Group and Tony Avella, the NYS senator.

A big part of the boutique was the two raffles that were held throughout the entire day. Each vendor donated one of their wares to be raffled off and tickets were sold to vendors and shoppers alike.

“There were two raffles. The PTA raffle had every vendor giving us a gift. Every hour, we raffled off a few of the items donated. It was very successful because we made a good profit. The other raffle was done by Judy Markowitz. She sold raffles and the profits were split in half. Half of it went to the person who won the raffle and the other half was donated to the PTA,” PTA treasurer Monica Giannakopoulos said.

The money that was raised will be going to a variety of events that the PTA supports: career day, senior graduation, PSAT bags that are distributed to the high school on the day of the exam. The jeans day passes that Mrs.Schneider handed out to any student who brought their parent just sweetened the pot.

“I had a lot of fun. There was a lot of fun people, good food, and I’d definitely do it next year,” employee of Shoe Village Peter Song said.