June 28, 2013

Hello everyone!

I had a nice surprise today. I was thinking that ALA only had four more weeks of summer vacation. Then I realized that it's actually four weeks until in-service, six until the students re-join us. Then Mr. Rosenbaum told me that in-service had been post-poned for a week, so summer vacation just keeps getting longer and longer. (I wish!)

We had a wonderful vacation in Connecticut with our friends. We went to the coast, to New York City, to Boston, and many other places. We hope to go back soon!

Inventory
Reports are due this week. Please submit them at this link.

Filling Orders
ALA's office is closed this week, so I will not be ordering Scrip. You're welcome to place your order and I will fill it the week of 7/7.

Fry's Gift Card Program  

You should have received an email from me on Wednesday regarding Fry's gift card program. If you have not yet read it, you can access it here.

I expect that you will be asked many questions by your supporters. Please encourage them to either reload their Fry's cards as much as they can before 7/27 and/or to purchase more cards from you. Also remind them that every other grocery store in the Valley does offer Scrip. This includes Costco through the American Express card.

You also should nclude something about this in your church bulletin. ALA will send out a bulletin blurb for Sunday 7/14, but we often run into difficulties getting timely information into church bulletins. Your help is appreciated with this.

I will update you with information for the new Fry's program as soon as we are able to sign people up for it.

This situation is a huge blow to the Scrip program and ALA. Fry's accounted for $65,000 of our $101,000 in profits this past year . We shared half of this with our supporters, but we still have to find a way to make up about $33,000! I expect that some of this money will come from shoppers moving to other grocery stores, and we will earn a little from the new Fry's program. But it's a new challenge for us to embrace. We appreciate any and all encouragement you can give to our supporters to use Scrip and support ALA's ministry.

Happy 4th of July everyone!