Volunteer with the PTO

Every extra hand makes a big difference at Lawrence. Whether you can give a little time or a lot, there’s a way for everyone to get involved—and we’d love to have you! Check out our Volunteer Opportunities Page for a list of current events that need extra hands—there’s something for every schedule, skill, and energy level!

❤️Just One Hour Can Help!

This year, we’re launching a new initiative to make volunteering simpler and more impactful. We’re asking each family to pledge just one volunteer hour per child to support our school events.

To make things easier, each grade will "host" a specific event during the school year. This way, we build community and make sure every event shines!

2025–2026 Event Hosting by Grade

  • Fall Picnic (Thurs, Sept 19): Kindergarten & 2nd Grade

  • Fun Run (Sun, Oct 20): 6th Grade

  • PTO Play (Wed–Fri, May 7–9): 1st Grade

  • Family Fun @ International Night (Thurs, May 15): 3rd Grade

  • Used Book Fair (Wed–Fri, May 28–30): 4th Grade

  • Spring Picnic (Tues, June 3): 5th Grade

  • Graduation (Wed, June 18): 7th Grade

Other Ways to Get Involved!

🧑‍🏫 Be a Room Parent
Support your classroom teacher and help keep families informed throughout the year.
Contact: Erica White

🌱 Join a Volunteer Group
Lend your skills to one of our amazing committees that bring enrichment, learning, and community events to life.

⭐ Join the PTO Board
Help guide PTO initiatives and planning! We're always looking for fresh ideas and energy. Learn more and express interest here.

📋 CORI Reminder

All volunteers must complete a CORI form and return it to the Lawrence front office before volunteering. Thank you for helping make Lawrence such a special place!

Thank You Volunteers!

🎉

Thank You Volunteers! 🎉

We’re so grateful for the amazing parents and caregivers who’ve pitched in to help make recent events a success! Here's our growing Wall of Thanks 💜

🎭PTO Play

Major props to our volunteers who helped bring the show to life!
Kate Becker, Desiree Prevoo

🎬Early Release Movie Days

Thanks to everyone who helped make movie days a smooth and fun experience!
Sadia Mahmood, Sharon Imber, Anya Meyer, Teresa Qiu, Tia He, Midori Koyama, and Zhigui Wu

🧪STEM Fair

Thanks to all the amazing parents and community partners who made science shine!
Joanne Chiu, Meghna Chakrabarti, Mike Platt, Toby Lai-Bates, Dan Canniff, Jon Kerner, Rebecca Stubbs, Carey Radebaugh, Chris Paetsch, Nick Yoder, Max Yoder, Max Kagan, Anna Stejskalova, Brookline TNT Robotics, Bun Chan, Sadaf Kazmi, Cora Weissbourd, Liz Quiat, Marcie Simon Miller, Christina Grady, Judy Platt, Juliet Platt, Colleen Bognet, Jacinta Okeke, and the Inferno Acorns

📸Picture Day

Thank you for keeping picture day full of smiles from start to finish!
Haemin Kang, Soojin Lee, Desiree Prevoo, and Cathleen Schoen (and Bridget Muelbert for overseeing it all!!)

🎃Costume Swap

Thanks to our volunteers for helping share the magic!
Natalie Canniff, Kana Ikegawa, Sharon Imber, Nora Sanders, Pikki Szeto

🏃‍♀️Fun Run

Thank you to all our amazing Fun Run volunteers—you helped make it a smooth, fun, and energetic day!
Hina Shah, Yue Liu, Laurice Chiongbi, Robin McKenzie, Tom Finucane, Midori Koyama, Nora Sanders, Lena McLoughlin, Kana Ikegawa, Shohei Mimamiguchi, Robert Laessing, Katherine Butler, Leakhena Schechter, Ryo Morisue, Margaret Lai, Toby Bates, Sheri Simmons, Rachel Sater, Akiko Morisue, Irina Dobreva, Aya Miyagawa, Naomi Okuda, Natalie Canniff, Katie Laessing, Dan Canniff, and Imogen Pryce

🧁Bake Sale Contributors

Sweet thanks to everyone who baked, dropped off treats, or helped feed the fun!
Nicole Abrantes, Maria Karla Aleonar, Anne Bosilevac, Sarah Rae Easter, Deborah Fisher, Christina Grady, Erica White, Rebecca Hermos, Chinatsu Hidaka, Sharon Imber, Rei Kameda, Midori Koyama, Joe Leopold, Nora Sanders, Masumi Sasaki, Leakhena Schechter, and Kayoko Yamada

🍂Fall Picnic

Big thanks to everyone who helped kick off the year with food, fun, and community spirit!
Jessica Aisenbrey, Jesse Barron, Liza Bater, Anne Bosilevac, Christina Braga, Katherine Butler, Amanda Carrillo, Caroline Carver, Jenru Chen, Avani Desai, Rong Fu, Rebecca Hermos, Victoria Jardus, Chisato Konishi, Annie Li, Jane Licurse, Bridget Muelbert, Vanitha Nithianandam, Teresa Qiu, Leakhena Schechter, Yuka Yamada, Xiaodan Yan

🌟 Volunteer Spotlight

Meet the STEM Fair Organizers

Jenny Yoder has lived in Brookline for over 15 years and has two children—Kai, a 6th grader at Lawrence, and Max, a 9th grader at BHS. She is passionate about science and community-building, and works as Director and Platform Lead in Synthetic Biology at Harvard’s Wyss Institute. Jenny has been deeply involved in various Lawrence School initiatives, including serving on the PTO Board and co-organizing the Lawrence School Food Fest.

Hina Srivastava is a new Lawrence parent whose son, Rohith, is in 2nd grade. She works at CHA Hospital in Cambridge and was excited to be part of bringing the STEM Fair to life for the first time at Lawrence.

Q: What inspired the creation of the STEM Fair?

Jenny: It was a combination of my own passion for science education and the desire to bring our community together to celebrate the innate scientist in every Lawrence student. The goals for the STEM Fair were simple: nurture kids’ curiosity, build enthusiasm for STEM, encourage hands-on exploration, provide an opportunity for students to present their projects, and most importantly—have fun!

Q: How did the inaugural STEM Fair go?

Hina: Honestly, it went better than we expected! Since this was the first time bringing the event to Lawrence, I anticipated more hiccups, but everything came together smoothly thanks to our amazing community. From engaged parents and teachers to the custodial staff and Jenny’s outreach efforts, everyone contributed to making it a success. It was truly a team effort!

Q: What impact did the STEM Fair have on students?

Jenny: The fair gave students an opportunity to explore a STEM-related question, conduct hands-on experiments, and think critically. Some students worked with their teachers or parents, while others collaborated with friends—just like real scientists do! I was especially grateful to Lawrence teachers, like Ms. Su and Ms. Mercer, who set aside classroom time to support STEM Fair projects. Seeing kids confidently present their work to peers, parents, and judges was incredibly rewarding. Hopefully, they had fun and will be inspired to participate again next year!

Q: How did parent volunteers contribute, and how can more families get involved?

Hina: Parent volunteers were crucial to making this event a success. When I arrived at the gym, I was met by enthusiastic parents ready to jump in, think creatively, and solve any challenges that came up. Our judge volunteers worked one-on-one with students, providing constructive feedback and encouragement. Next year, we will absolutely rely on parent volunteers again, and families can sign up when the forms go out next winter!

Q: What’s the vision for the future of the STEM Fair?

Hina: I would love in the future for even more students to join with their projects and perhaps to include classroom time to help guide and create the science that experiments!!

Jenny: Of course I hope we can make the STEM fair an annual event, and it would be great to have the next one in the late winter/early spring. That timing would allow successful projects and ambitious students to compete with kids around the state at the Massachusetts State Science Fair.  We saw some very strong projects that I think could do well, and definitely Lawrence students could learn from kids from other schools. 

There are at least three things the community can do to help grow the STEM Fair:

  1. More classroom involvement –teachers can continue to dedicate time within the school day to conduct STEM-based project based learning; this is really important to give all students an opportunity to work on a project.

  2. Collaboration with other schools – This year the Ridley school organizers provided an amazing blueprint on which we based our STEM Fair (shoutout to FRR parent Chris Paetsch who was also a volunteer judge).

  3. More parent volunteers – We continue to get more amazing Lawrence parent volunteers to help with judging, demos, and logistics. This year we had so many volunteers come together so quickly and with so much enthusiasm - the more we have, the higher and lighter the lift.  Big big thanks to all who volunteered their valuable time to make this inaugural event a success!