Created by a PTA Mom to
Keep the “FUNDS” in Your School’s Fundraiser
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To Watch a 3-Minute Video about our Read-A-Thon Platform
take control of your fundraising dollars.
Collect donations on your own PTA or school website and upload the information into our read-a-thon platform that tracks reading hours, donation dollars and more!
student + Parent portal
Ready to log your reading minutes and share with family & friends?
PTA + Teacher PortaL
Ready to upload your donations or log a classroom reading session?
START a READ-A-THON FOR YOUR SCHOOL!
Ready to start raising money for your school? Let’s get started!
The Most Affordable Read-A-Thon Platform Around!
Find a lower comparable read-a-thon platform and we will not only match the price but beat it! We have so many amazing features to help kids get excited about reading and raising money for their school! Students have their own personal dashboard with 3 different reading timers, a reading log notebook so they can document their progress and share with family & friends, a school leaderboard for motivation, and a link to a prize store or a list of competitions & prizes specific for their school. Our platform fee also includes prizes for both reading and getting donations! Every student can participate and earn a prize regardless of their family’s ability to donate!
How It Works
Read-a-thons by Secret Surprise Sack is compatible with any fundraising platform you choose, from your own School/PTA’s website to any free crowdfunding platform like GoFundMe. Unlike other read-a-thon programs, we want YOU to have full control over your pledged donations so that more of your money can be used to help your school. Once you’ve set up how you’ll raise donations, follow these steps to incorporate Secret Surprise Sack:
STEP 1 - REGISTER YOUR SCHOOL
Contact us to register your school! We’ll need your start date and the length of your read-a-thon. We will confirm that your dates are available and help you customize the read-a-thon platform for your school. We will link your fundraising campaign page to the students’ readathon dashboard and talk about what style of bookmarks and type of prizes you want.
step 2 - SET UP PARTICIPANTS
We collect very limited student information to protect their privacy! All we need is:
Student’s first name, last initial
Teacher’s name
Birth Month
No email or additional student information is needed!
We will send you a spreadsheet to fill out and then we will upload it into the platform for you.
Step 3 - Have students log-in
Each student will receive a fun reading themed bookmark containing a QR code that connects them to the readathon platform. The first time they log into the read-a-thon platform, they will find their classroom and then select their name. It will ask them for their birth month (confirming they are the correct student), have them select a prize icon password and avatar. Each time they log into their student dashboard, it will ask them for their birth month and prize icon password. This ensures the correct student is only going into their own account and not their classmates.
step 4 - Get Students reading
Students will earn prize points for both reading and getting donations.
The student’s read-a-thon dashboard has 3 reading timers (15, 30 or 60 minutes). They will enter the name of their book and start the timer. The timer will ring when the session is complete and automatically enter their book’s name and time read into their reading log. Students can also enter a reading session manually. In addition, there is a teacher dashboard where teachers can quickly enter classroom reading sessions and review students’ reading logs.
step 5 - start raising donations
Once kids start reading, donations come easy! Your school’s fundraising page is linked directly to each student’s read-a-thon dashboard.
Every email or text that the student sends “sharing their reading progress” with family & friends, has a “make a donation” icon that links to your school’s fundraising website.
There is also a “Make a Donation” icon on their dashboard that links directly to your fundraising page. This makes it easy for parents to make a donation after their child has read their promised amount of reading, motivating their child by boosting their child’s prize points.
Students’ can see who made donation pledges and how much they donated by clicking on “My Donations”.
Step 6 - upload donations into the read-a-thon platform
Most schools upload donations daily so that students can see their prize points growing. This is very simple and done on your school admin dashboard. You can do it yourself or send us the excel spreadsheet and we will upload it for you. There are also two other ways to enter donations in manually. One is by selecting the student’s name under the correct classroom and the second is by simply copying and pasting the student’s read-a-thon ID.
The school admin dashboard also has the ability to see and edit all donations entered, view school statistics showing total reading hours and donation dollars raised by each classroom, view and edit students’ reading logs and more.
STEP 7: reward your students for their reading and donations raised!
If your school is signed up for the Full Prize Store Platform, students will be able to go to the prize store throughout the readathon, picking out prizes and saving them to their “my favorites” list. They will not be able to check out and “purchase” their prizes until the end of the read-a-thon (once prize points are locked and no longer editable)
If your school is signed up for the Competitions & Prizes Platform, students will have access to a list of your school’s “prizes & competitions” viewable from their student dashboard. It will also show the prize they can earn by completing the READING CHALLENGE.
At the end of the read-a-thon, Secret Surprise Sack will arrange to have your prizes delivered within 2-3 weeks. Have a specific date in mind for your “prize day” distribution? Be sure to request it during registration and we will try to accommodate it.
Gone are the days of 25 - 50% of your donation dollars going to a fundraising company!
Read-a-thon Platform Fees As Low As $399*
Contact Us Today
3 Different Platform Options Available:
competitions & Prizes -fees
full prize store -Contact us
new school trial - $399*
*$399 Flat Rate “New School Trial” Platform does not include bookmarks or prizes.
About Our Founder
Mary LaPlante is a full-time working mom of two sons. Together with the support of her husband, Kevin, she first launched Super Secret Surprise Sack as a way to not only fund her sons’ future college educations, but to offer affordable prizes for teachers as well as fun and unique party favors for kids. When volunteering with her sons’ PTA, she realized that many popular fundraising websites not only took a large percentage of the money raised, the prizes they offered (at a crazy markup!) weren’t motivating the kids. Naturally creative, Mary saw a way to merge her business into a new & improved way for schools to fundraise, keeping more of their funds while also offering unique prizes kids are excited about earning.