BES prepares for carnival

Published 9:10 pm Saturday, May 16, 2015

With more than 20 activities, 40 cases of donated water, about 50 volunteers and an increasing number of cupcakes, the BES PTA is well on its way to hosting an end-of-the-school-year event for the whole family.

For a second year, the Brookhaven Elementary School Parent Teacher Association is hosting the BES Carnival. This year’s event will be Tuesday from 5 to 8 p.m. Admission to the carnival is free but paid tickets are needed for rides and activities. The PTA will be selling armbands for the night: $15 for all carnival games and $20 for all rides plus carnival games. PTA President Suzanne Britt said she encourages everyone to come out and enjoy one activity for free.

Britt said the carnival will be an old-fashioned kind of event with games she said many younger children might not know. The list of games includes washer toss, fish bowl toss, ball toss, bean bag toss, rain gutter races, ring toss, ducks in a pond, a cupcake walk and much more.

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Some of the non-game activities include trackless train rides, inflatable jumpers and slides, hair spraying and a photo booth. In addition to those, local artists will be present for face painting. Some of the artists volunteering their time are Pat Allen, Merrie Boerner, Pat Smith and Amy Hickman.

Hickman is a first-grade teacher at Mamie Martin Elementary School and said participating in BES events allow her to keep in contact with students she’s taught and have moved on in the Brookhaven School District.

Another of the bigger events Britt and the PTA have planned is a dunking booth featuring some of the men of the Brookhaven School District. Serving 30-minute sessions at the dunking booth starting at 5 p.m. are Brookhaven High School Baseball Coach Randy Spring, BHS Head Coach Tommy Clopton, BES Assistant Principal Jerrold Willis, Mamie Martin Principal Rob McCreary, BHS Principal David Martin and BHS Band Director Clay Whittington.

The PTA will be raffling off three items during the night: a 20-quart Yeti cooler, an unlimited summer pass to Jump-n-Jive and a $50 gift certificate to Scrub Zone.

At 7:30 p.m. that night the PTA will announce the teacher whose classroom raised the most money for Heifer International, a charity that provides livestock to underprivileged villages across the world. Since the beginning of spring students have been putting pocket change into the cow-shaped “piggy” banks. The teacher whose classroom raises the most money will have to kiss a calf that night. Britt said classrooms were able to raise $1,900 last year.

The PTA was able to secure the closing of the street by the school as well as a fire truck from the fire department and a cruiser from the police department, which will be present so children can interact with them.

Britt said proceeds from the event go toward improvements at the school. With last year’s revenue they were able to buy one new computer for each classroom at BES.

“It helps underwrite some of the things that go on at the school throughout the year,” Britt said. “We try to divide it evenly between what the teachers need and what benefits the students.”

Britt, who will be leaving the PTA at the end of this year, said she wants to leave everything so whoever comes next doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

She said the BES Carnival was a year in the planning, and a lot of the upfront costs they encountered last year were taken care of this year. Some items they purchased last year will be reused and the community has donated other items.

“I want to leave it where they can come in and know what we’ve done and build upon it,” Britt said.