The year-end school party in Catherine Poling's third-grade class this week was a bit unusual: Girls wore their best dresses and kids scribbled "Go Homework" and "I H Homework" on the whiteboard.
It was different in another respect: It had a corporate sponsor. Dunkin' Donuts sent four dozen doughnuts and a representative to help celebrate the class's $6,000 grand prize victory in the company's contest to develop a one-minute commercial on "selling" the importance of homework.
Aissa Rouse, 8, left, and her class won $6,000 in contest money from Dunkin' Donuts for a commercial on "selling" the importance of homework.
(Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post)
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Video: Oakdale Elementarys Winning Performance
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The school, two-year-old Oakdale Elementary in Frederick County, is getting used to receiving large corporate checks. Last year, it won $10,000 for performing the best interpretation of Oscar Mayer's well-known wiener song. This year it won another $10,000 from Oscar Mayer for singing its bologna song and two other melodies, written by music teacher Lori Bower, praising Oscar Mayer Lunchables, complete with children dressed up as dancing pieces of bologna, ham and cheese.
Oakdale is the beneficiary of business's new efforts to market products inside schools, encouraging students to influence their parents' purchases.
One way they're reaching kids is by offering cash prizes to schools. Nestle offers a $10,000 grand prize for the most creative art using SweeTarts. It also awards five, $5,000 first-place awards.
Angel Soft toilet paper sponsors "Angel in Action," awarding $10,000 to the school with the best community service program, along with another $1,000 for the teacher. Baltimore's Stadium School won this year's grand prize for its efforts to develop a youth-run youth center. Last month, "Malcolm in the Middle" star Jane Kaczmarek showed up at the school to deliver the award.
Now, Angel Soft is searching for 10 students, ages 8 to 15, to award $5,000 each for exemplary acts of service -- along with a year's supply of toilet paper. "What family doesn't need that?" said Jill Mattos, senior director of brand marketing for Georgia Pacific's bath tissue brands.
While companies say they are filling a gap left by school funding deficits, some experts decry the trend.
"It's a very dangerous thing for a corporation to have this kind of presence in school," said advertising critic Jean Kilbourne. Children are more susceptible in school, she said, because they tend to believe that what they learn there is valid. So a commercial message in schools, no matter how subtle, "gives an aura of responsibility and truth," Kilbourne said.
Companies acknowledge they are trying to reach their current and future customers, but say their programs promote goodwill and help cash-strapped schools.
Nestle spokeswoman Tricia Bowles, for example, said the SweeTart art contest was designed to "do something extra for schools." Art programs are often cut when school budgets shrink, she noted. She said the company has not gotten complaints, except from schools saying that "we needed to send candy."
School officials say corporate programs are likely to become even more prevalent. "We're looking at very dire fiscal conditions in the states," said Dan Fuller, director of federal programs for the National School Boards Association. "Funding cuts in many programs, including education," are pressing many schools to look for other sources of income.
This year, 5,200 schools competed in the SweeTart contest. Submissions included a SweeTart mosaic of Mona Lisa and a life-size, three-dimensional car called the Sweetmobile that was covered in thousands of pieces of the pastel candy. The grand winner went to a Boston school for its staircase mural, with replicas of famous paintings by Monet, van Gogh and Dali, each incorporating the candy in some way.
Louise McCullogh, field marketing manager for the mid-Atlantic region of Dunkin' Donuts, said it launched its "Homework Stars" commercial contest to make a difference. "We started research to see where we could benefit our community," she said. "In talking to educators we found that homework was an area no one dealt with."
