Area educators have a recipe to help ease the pain of funding cuts. It involves a Big Mac, fries and other items on the McDonald’s menu.

The Lawrence-area McDonald’s franchise is expanding its 8-year-old program of donating 20 percent of it sales from one evening a year to an area school.

This year, the company has doubled the number of schools it will serve and quadrupled the number of evenings it will sponsor the fund-raising events.

The Lawrence restaurants, owned by Lawrence-based Dobski & Associates, decided to expand the program after the McDonald’s Heartland Region office began urging stores in eastern Kansas and Missouri to come up with a fund-raiser to help schools.

“They were trying to come up with some different public relations ideas at the regional office and they decided on this, in large part, because they know how tough a financial situation most schools in Kansas and Missouri are facing right now,” Patrick Manning, marketing manager for the Lawrence stores, said.

The first “McTeacher’s Night” in the Lawrence area will be from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. today. Teachers from South Junior High School will be staffing the McDonald’s at 901 W. 23rd St.; Central Junior High School staff members will be at the restaurant at Sixth and Michigan streets; and teachers from Eudora’s Nottingham School will be at the McDonald’s on South Iowa Street. Southwest Junior High School has yet to set a date, but will participate in the program. In the past SWJHS teachers have worked at the McDonald’s at 4911 W. Sixth St.

About 12 teachers or staff members from each school will work a one-hour shift at their designated store. They perform tasks such as preparing french fries, staffing the drive-through window and cleaning the lobby. In exchange for their work, McDonald’s donates 20 percent of the sales during the four-hour period to the school.

Charlotte Prosser, a teacher at Central Junior High School, pours a soft drink at the McDonald's restaurant at 1309 W. Sixth St. Prosser was rehearsing Monday for today's McDonald's McTeacher's Night, when area school teachers will help serve meals to raise money for their schools.

Manning said the Lawrence restaurants began the program eight years ago as part of the Lawrence school district’s Business Education Partnership Program. The store first began working with SJHS, and then about five years ago added SWJHS. He said each event has typically raised $400 to $500 for the school.

This year, each school will have the opportunity to participate up to four nights a year, which means an individual school might raise around $2,000 from the project.

Charlotte Prosser, a teacher at CJHS, will be working tonight at the Sixth Street McDonald’s. She said the program is particularly important this year.

“It’s extremely important because so many of the things we want to do for the students require money,” Prosser said. “If we don’t have the money, the students just miss out.”

Prosser said that no definite decision has been made on what the school would use the money for, but she said that other fund-raisers have been used to support scholarships for students who needed financial help to attend various camps or seminars.