I know that Blue Ribbon Cookie Dough is a good one. See's chocolate candy has been done and overdone. We are thinking about doing a dinner at a local restaurant. Do you have some other "successful" fundraising ideas that you would like to share? Thanks...
We did exceptionly well with the dinner at a restaurant. No work involved and good money. One of my programs made goodies for the staff lounge, and asked for donations. Garage sale--maybe you have a mom who loves to do this. One of our pizza places had a coupon that gave us a $1 when used.
Talent show with raffle. T Shirt catelog sales. Car washes. See's Candy. Cell phone recycling. School wide recycling program. Yard sales. Hot dog/ bake sale at back to school night. Writing letters to local service organizations.
Barnes and Noble lets you host a book fair in their stores. You pick a weekend, print out some coupons, and up to 10% of the sales that day go to our school! (They operate on a sliding scale. There has to be a certain amount in sales to get the 10%. Chilis also does something similar. If someone presents your organizations coupon on a select night (always a Monday or Tuesday), then you get 10% of the sale.
My school has a standing restaurant night. First Wed of each month. The place varies, but we're in a highly developed area with many places willing to support the local schools.
Our local skating rink does a fundraiser once a month on Thursday that benefit the school. Cookie dough has been so overdone here I just send a check for a donation now. Our bad kids sell plant bulbs and that seems to go over well and one of the other elementary schools does a scensty fundraiser. Looking forward to hearing the other ideas too.
Throughout the year, we sell popcorn, jumbo freezies or frozen yogurt at recess; there is always a long line up of students to purchase. The parent council organizes a magazine subscription fundraiser and does a basket raffle. We also have a variety of special lunch options (pizza, pita sandwiches, etc) for the students to participate in throughout the year--we don't have a cafeteria, so this is a nice change from lunches brought from home.
Two words... Penny Wars. We are an extremely small school (50 students) and we made close to 500.00. We kicked the whole thing off with an assembly and the class who had the most got a trophy.
Our PTO is trying Boosterthon this year. A school in our district did it and raised an amazing amount of money. I have never seen it, but from what I understand, the kids run/walk laps around a track to raise money. They go out ahead of time and collect pledges, perhaps based on how many laps they complete. Parents like it because the run/walk happens at school during the school day. The students have fun, and everyone participates in the run/walk, even if they don't have any pledges. I don't know the nitty-gritty about setting it up, but I am a little excited for it.
I did a fund raising project for a charity last year and the kids had a rummage sale. They sold only kids items. Most kids went through their own toys and clothes for the sale. We used folding tables and labeled each one with a price. In class the kids sorted into piles for each price (25 cents to $5). We had a couple $10 items too. I provided baggies and rubber bands and kids also grouped things into sets. For example, a baggie of littlest pet shop figures. The kids made posters and managed the sale. I arranged for a parent to deliver the leftovers to goodwill. We made nearly $700 and the people who bought the most were actually teachers! The only down side was that for a week we had to store the items in our classroom and it took a few hours of class time to sort everything. I would do it again in a heart beat though!
