The paper describes and interprets some informal practices of rinkliavos at public schools in Lithuania. The emic word rinkliavos refers to money collections conducted by pupils’ parents for improvement of school’s material basis as well as for gift giving from the class community to the teacher(s) on different occasions. It is argued that instead of building community, these informal practices expose differences in the participants’ socio-economic status. Their perceptions of the state obligations to its citizens as well as the principles of community building also shape the ways they evaluate these practices.