{"id":12786,"date":"2024-10-30T15:38:09","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T19:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=12786"},"modified":"2024-10-30T15:38:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T19:38:09","slug":"great-gourds-for-a-great-cause-at-thalia-elementary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/great-gourds-for-a-great-cause-at-thalia-elementary\/","title":{"rendered":"Great gourds for a great cause at Thalia Elementary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Would you like to bring home a ghost pumpkin, a Snoopy pumpkin or perhaps a football pumpkin? If none of those suit you, would you consider pumpkins decorated with the theme of a Rubik\u2019s cube, or a box of donuts or a haunted house?<\/p>\n

These were some of the options at the decorated pumpkin auction at Thalia Elementary this year.<\/p>\n

For 17 years now, art teacher Heather Piccoli has been auctioning off pumpkins to raise money for the United Way of South Hampton Roads. This year\u2019s silent auction raised $400.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s a fun way to raise money for a good cause,\u201d Piccoli said. \u201cWhen we started, students would bring their pumpkins to school to carve with their parents. They would leave the mess for our Student Council Association students to clean up. Now, teachers decorate the pumpkins with some help from students.\u201d<\/p>\n

One teacher had her students use their fingerprints to paint the words, \u201ctrick or treat\u201d onto a pumpkin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The auction takes place during the school\u2019s trunk or treat celebration, which draws hundreds of students, parents and community members every year. \u00a0Several teachers dressed up as the witches from \u201cHocus Pocus.\u201d Other trunk themes included a \u201cSpookbucks\u201d cafe designed after \u201cStarbucks,\u201d a walkway inspired by the Candy Land board game and a mad scientist lab complete with floating bubbles. The event is sponsored by the school\u2019s Parent Teacher Association.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a Family Engagement Title 1 math and science fair inside the cafeteria, including Mad Science presentations supported by a grant from the Virginia Beach Education Foundation.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s police and fire departments don’t miss out on the fun, said principal Nicole Keros. Firefighters passed out candy, and a police car was decked out with inflatable green aliens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe bring out our community partners to share in the excitement of learning and having fun,\u201d Keros said. \u201cIt really brings the community together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Would you like to bring home a ghost pumpkin, a Snoopy pumpkin or perhaps a football pumpkin? If none of those suit you, would you consider pumpkins decorated with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12786"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12806,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12786\/revisions\/12806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}