Volunteering with your PTA can be overwhelming—but you’re not alone. This section offers encouragement from experienced members and a sincere thank-you for everything you do.
Updated July 2025
Summary:
- Teacher Appreciation Week takes place from May 4th to 8th in 2026, while Teacher Appreciation Day falls on May 6th.
- Teacher appreciation ideas don’t have to be expensive to be meaningful, but using the right tools can help school groups raise more money to cover the costs. FutureFund makes fundraising easy with customizable campaigns and tools for online sales.
- We’ve provided some free forms and resources to help you organize your Teacher Appreciation Week events and start planning.
- Find templates for a teacher appreciation survey, cost calculator, volunteer sign-up sheet, and more below.
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Teacher Appreciation Week takes place in the first full week of May every year. In 2026, it will happen from May 4th to May 8th.
Teacher Appreciation Day falls on Tuesday during Teacher Appreciation Week. In 2026, that’s on May 5th.
Planning activities to celebrate your teachers during these dates helps them feel valued and brings school communities together for a good cause. Our team at FutureFund has provided the resources and tips below to help you treat your teachers right during this important time of year.
See Also: Essential Resources and Tools for PTA Volunteers
Raising money for teacher appreciation events
FutureFund can help your school group raise the money you need to show teachers how much they mean to you. You can use our platform to help fund teacher appreciation activities in many different ways.
Running fundraiser campaigns
Collect donations to support teacher appreciation initiatives through an online campaign hosted on your school’s FutureFund page. You can:
- Set suggested donation amounts
- Enable corporate matching
- Activate installment payments
If you enable our donor wall and/or progress bar, visitors will be able to see how close you are to reaching your goals in real-time. That’s a great way to motivate people to donate!
Learn how to run a donation campaign on FutureFund.
Selling school spirit wear
Purchase campaigns make it easy to sell spirit wear and other school-related gear online. Add amazing options like:
- T-shirts
- Sweaters
- Sweatpants
- Hats
You can also set special pricing for PTAs or other school groups, including students. Parents can pay on their behalf easily right on your campaign page.
Learn how to run a purchase campaign on FutureFund.
Holding A-Thon style pledge campaigns
Any practice for a school band or sports team can quickly become a fundraiser for teacher appreciation activities when you turn it into an A-Thon. You can:
- Set points for specific achievements
- Activate our built-in leaderboard
- Give participants access to their own dashboard
Participating students use FutureFund to register in minutes. Then, they get individual links they can use to collect pledges from family and friends.
Learn how to run a pledge campaign on FutureFund.
Use HelpOut.us to show your appreciation
HelpOut.us makes it easy to crowdsource awesome gifts for teachers, staff, and volunteers so you can show them how much the whole school community appreciates their efforts!
It’s easy to use, and 100% free, just like FutureFund. Collect contributions on behalf of specific community members, who can then redeem the proceeds for gift cards of their choice.
Teacher appreciation ideas for 2026
Your first order of business is to start planning out your teacher appreciation activities. We’ve organized a list of ideas by budget so that you can find cost-effective solutions that meet your school’s needs.
See this list of 15 Teacher Appreciation Week Ideas for PTAs for even more inspiration!
Low-cost ideas (Under $200)
Showing teachers that you appreciate them doesn’t have to be expensive—there are lots of affordable ways to make them feel valued. Consider some of these options if you don’t have a ton of flexibility in your budget:
- Potluck lunch buffet: Ask parents and volunteers to each donate a homemade food item. Host a buffet in the gym for your teachers.
- Handmade gifts from arts & crafts students: Have students in creative classes make small items as gifts for teachers at the start of May, then distribute them during Teacher Appreciation Week. This won’t cost anything beyond the art supplies already in your classrooms.
- Service vouchers from local businesses: Ask parents who run local businesses like salons or spas to donate free services to teachers. If you don’t have enough to go around, give a few away as special prizes to teachers who made a significant contribution to your school this year.
- Shared gifts for the teacher’s lounge: Buying one gift and putting it in a place where all the teachers can use it is much more cost-effective than purchasing one for every teacher. Small but useful options like a coffee machine or french press work best.
Remember: it’s the thought that counts. The best gifts come from the heart and have real meaning behind them no matter how much they actually cost.
Medium-budget ideas ($200-$500)
If you have some money in the budget to put on a larger event, you have more options to choose from. Try these fun ideas on for size:
- Personalized gift baskets: These don’t have to be extravagant! Just putting a few of each teacher’s favorite snacks or flowers together with a personalized note can be extremely impactful.
- Food truck or coffee stand: Hire a local vendor and have them set up a food truck or booth at the school on Teacher Appreciation Day.
- Classroom decorations: Potted plants, wall art, and hanging signs with the teacher’s name on them are all a nice choice. You don’t have to spend a lot—even small gestures add up.
A medium budget can go quickly if you’re buying for many teachers at once, so keep in mind that you can also scale ideas like these down according to your needs. If you can’t afford to hire a local vendor to bring in a coffee stand, recruit a few volunteers, buy the supplies, and host it yourself instead.
Big budget ideas ($500+)
Looking to make a big splash with your teacher appreciation efforts or have a bit more money to spend? These larger-scale ideas may cost a little bit more, but they’re sure to have an impact:
- School supply cake: Instead of freshly baked, this type of “cake” is actually a four-tiered stack of commonly requested classroom supply items arranged around a foam core and bound together with tape and cloth ribbon. Make one for each department (or each classroom if you can afford it).
- Upgrade the teacher’s lounge: Purchasing new furniture, appliances, or wallpaper for the teacher’s lounge is a great way to let all the teachers at your school know how much you care about them. It also shows everyone you’re invested in giving back.
- Hand out gift cards: If you have the money for it or plan to fundraise anyway, gift cards to local shops and/or chain retailers like Target, Staples, Costco, or Walmart are a great choice. Teachers can buy what they want or need most with them.
Having more money to work with is nice, but how much you spend isn’t really what makes an idea amazing. The key is to make teachers feel seen, valued, and celebrated for all they do.
Forms & resources
We’ve created a number of free resources you can use to plan and organize your teacher appreciation activities. Here’s how to use them:
- Click the button in each section to navigate to the corresponding Google Doc, Google Sheet, Google Form, or Canva Template.
- Each template provided is “View Only”, so you’ll need to make your own copy first.
- For Canva files, click the “View Template” button, then “Open in Editor.”
- For Google Docs, Forms, or Sheets, click “Use Template” instead.
You can edit your version of each template by adding your school’s details.
Teacher appreciation survey
Before choosing your teacher appreciation events, it’s best to find out what will make your teachers feel valued—and what better way than to just ask them? Here’s a sample survey you can distribute to your teachers by hand or electronically via FutureFund’s messaging system.
DISCLAIMER: Please be sure to make your own copy of the form above. DO NOT send this template out to your teachers, or the information they share will be visible to anyone who accesses this document.
Teacher appreciation cost calculator
Making Teacher Appreciation Day go off without a hitch starts with having the right supplies on hand well in advance. Use this sheet to tally up the number of teachers and classrooms you’ll need to include in your plan and estimate their needs:
Sample teacher appreciation certificates
A simple certificate of appreciation can go a long way towards making teachers feel seen. These don’t have to be elaborate, but each one should include a few pieces of basic information. We created two templates to help you get started, but you can customize them with your own colors, school logos, etc.
Teacher appreciation volunteer sign-up form
Recruiting volunteers in advance is essential if you want your teacher appreciation activities to run smoothly. FutureFund helps you sign-up volunteers in just a few simple steps. If you aren’t using our platform yet, you can also create copies of this form and send them around before any events:
Download Volunteer Sign-Up Form
Teacher appreciation event flyer templates
You’ll also need to promote your teacher appreciation events so that the school community knows about them and is ready to participate.
In addition to sending messages through FutureFund, we recommend mentioning them in your school’s morning announcements and creating print materials to display on bulletin boards or in classrooms. Here are two templates to help you get started:
Show your teachers you care in 2026
Teachers give so much to schools—so it’s important to show them their efforts are being recognized. Use the resources we’ve provided above to make sure your teachers feel seen and supported during Teacher Appreciation Week and on Teacher Appreciation Day.
We also have tools that can help your school group go one step further in supporting your teachers. Get started with FutureFund to see how our platform helps you identify teacher needs, coordinate volunteers for events, and raise more money for the things your school really needs.
