The girl's school has one fund raiser after another. Unfortunately, part of our tuition contract states that we need to do x amount of sales for the school or pay at the end of the year. Luckily, they have some good fund raisers and you can "work off" a portion of what you owe.

OK, the fund raiser CRAP drives me CRAZY. (Working on a post about it myself.) Why oh why do they not find a local distributor and keep the money in our town's economy AND sell useful things?!

We could have a plant sale in the spring. Raffle off gift baskets. Jack's old school did this and they were awesome. Lots of local businesses chipped in and donated. They had a mom's day with lunch a barron's, a pedicure, a gift certificate to a retail store, etc...

I was shocked to find out our school made 15,000.00 off of cookie dough last year. It paid for playground equipment. That's a lot of dough.

We ran into this problem this year.. This is the gist of a letter I wrote in September..

Dear 'bored rich SAH fundraiser planner lady,

I have raised over $300 selling cookie dough at work in the last week. I was happy to participate in this, the first of what a thought would be a few fundraisers this year.. Until I got the note yesterday that we should start selling wrapping paper from the catalog..now..while I'm still selling the cookie dough.. I'm a little shocked that you would plan two large scale fundraisers in the same two week period. As we have recently moved here we have a limited pool of potential fundraiser customers and I would prefer to not bleed them dry the first month of school. I will not be participating in the wrapping paper fundraiser, but I will focus my efforts on the cookie dough fundraiser until it is finished. We will be happy to participate in another one in, oh, let's say 2 months..

THanks

At his school there was literally something you had to sell every week - or something you had to buy so that your kid wasn't left out and neglected because you're too cheap to dish out the money.. It's ridiculous!

A guy I knew said they should send kids around at the beginning of the year with a note that says,

"Give my school $20 now and I won't harass you for the rest of the year."

And like anyone needs that transfat laden disgusting tubs of cookie dough they sell. I always wish they would sell something I actually want or need.

Does anyone remember when the KIDS sold stuff for the fundraisers?

I know safety is a concern - but my goodness, could we find SOMETHING that doesn't require me to endlessly pedal to co-workers?

Ashley S.

They actually included in the notes "No door to door selling."

I just declined participating in most of it.

We're gearing up this week for the major fund raiser of the year at my kids' school, it's a fun fair complete with a big raffle, silent auction, rides, food stalls, craft stalls, pony rides, climbing wall, heaps of fun stuff for the kids. Local businesses contribute prizes and sponsor stalls. It does require a fair commitment of time and energy from parent volunteers but it's worth it I reckon, and the kids just love it.

Other than the Family Fun Day we don't do too many fund raisers (generally 2 in each of the 4 terms) and any we do are opt in only so if there's something that doesn't appeal you just ignore it. We sold Hot Cross Buns for Easter from the local bakery (owned by a family at the school), we'll be selling sunscreen from the Cancer Council in the lead up to summer, we run a Christmas Markets where we rent out stall space and parent involvement is minimal and the parent craft group sells gifts to the kids for Mothers and Fathers Day (I made 90 pairs of earrings for this year's Mothers Day stall).

I used to HATE the way the pre-school sent home a box of fund raising chocolate with my kid whether I wanted it or not. We almost always ended up just buying it all ourselves because I refused to go door to door, I didn't work and hubby's work had him traveling all the time so he couldn't take them in to the office either.

I've been a member of the P&C (Parents and Citizens association) for 5 years now, I like being able to nudge decision making in my preferred direction ;-)

Mim - you raise a valid point about getting involved.

If I cared enough I would join our PTA and either put a stop to fund raising or take part in deciding which fund raisers we'll do.

This is our first year with school so I guess I was just surprised and annoyed.

(I'm especially offended they would ask me to sell my family's private information to solicitors. That's just wrong.)

Also so many of them seemed to be about 10 cents or 50 cents and just an annoying waste. Your carnival seems like a way better alternative to penny pitching people a little at a time.

It has also occurred to me that they never said what they need funds for. Nor did they explain why their regular budget doesn't cover such expenses.

I'm a bit unclear about how funding works for schools in the US but for our state government funded public school in a fairly affluent area the school budget barely covers the basics.

The P&C donates at least $25 000 a year to the school to cover things ranging from the Early Literacy program and purchasing of library books, through staff development programs and on to photocopying supplies and provision of soap for the kids' bathrooms.

On top of that we also raise money for bigger projects such as providing air-conditioning for classrooms, refurbishing the canteen (it's getting a complete kitchen make-over this year) and even major building works.

So you can see why we do it!

You should make a nuisance of yourself and ask where the fundraising money goes :)

And yes, the selling to solicitors thing just boggles my brain. So very wrong.

Letting children manhandle wild animals for the sake of fundraisers is not healthy for the animals or the kids. It only encourages a mad sense of entitlement (promoted by marketing) and stresses out the animals. You made the right call.

The girl's school has one fund raiser after another. Unfortunately, part of our tuition contract states that we need to do x amount of sales for the school or pay at the end of the year. Luckily, they have some good fund raisers and you can "work off" a portion of what you owe.

OK, the fund raiser CRAP drives me CRAZY. (Working on a post about it myself.) Why oh why do they not find a local distributor and keep the money in our town's economy AND sell useful things?!

We could have a plant sale in the spring. Raffle off gift baskets. Jack's old school did this and they were awesome. Lots of local businesses chipped in and donated. They had a mom's day with lunch a barron's, a pedicure, a gift certificate to a retail store, etc...

I was shocked to find out our school made 15,000.00 off of cookie dough last year. It paid for playground equipment. That's a lot of dough.

We ran into this problem this year.. This is the gist of a letter I wrote in September..

Dear 'bored rich SAH fundraiser planner lady,

I have raised over $300 selling cookie dough at work in the last week. I was happy to participate in this, the first of what a thought would be a few fundraisers this year.. Until I got the note yesterday that we should start selling wrapping paper from the catalog..now..while I'm still selling the cookie dough.. I'm a little shocked that you would plan two large scale fundraisers in the same two week period. As we have recently moved here we have a limited pool of potential fundraiser customers and I would prefer to not bleed them dry the first month of school. I will not be participating in the wrapping paper fundraiser, but I will focus my efforts on the cookie dough fundraiser until it is finished. We will be happy to participate in another one in, oh, let's say 2 months..

THanks

At his school there was literally something you had to sell every week - or something you had to buy so that your kid wasn't left out and neglected because you're too cheap to dish out the money.. It's ridiculous!

A guy I knew said they should send kids around at the beginning of the year with a note that says,

"Give my school $20 now and I won't harass you for the rest of the year."

And like anyone needs that transfat laden disgusting tubs of cookie dough they sell. I always wish they would sell something I actually want or need.

Does anyone remember when the KIDS sold stuff for the fundraisers?

I know safety is a concern - but my goodness, could we find SOMETHING that doesn't require me to endlessly pedal to co-workers?

Ashley S.

They actually included in the notes "No door to door selling."

I just declined participating in most of it.

We're gearing up this week for the major fund raiser of the year at my kids' school, it's a fun fair complete with a big raffle, silent auction, rides, food stalls, craft stalls, pony rides, climbing wall, heaps of fun stuff for the kids. Local businesses contribute prizes and sponsor stalls. It does require a fair commitment of time and energy from parent volunteers but it's worth it I reckon, and the kids just love it.

Other than the Family Fun Day we don't do too many fund raisers (generally 2 in each of the 4 terms) and any we do are opt in only so if there's something that doesn't appeal you just ignore it. We sold Hot Cross Buns for Easter from the local bakery (owned by a family at the school), we'll be selling sunscreen from the Cancer Council in the lead up to summer, we run a Christmas Markets where we rent out stall space and parent involvement is minimal and the parent craft group sells gifts to the kids for Mothers and Fathers Day (I made 90 pairs of earrings for this year's Mothers Day stall).

I used to HATE the way the pre-school sent home a box of fund raising chocolate with my kid whether I wanted it or not. We almost always ended up just buying it all ourselves because I refused to go door to door, I didn't work and hubby's work had him traveling all the time so he couldn't take them in to the office either.

I've been a member of the P&C (Parents and Citizens association) for 5 years now, I like being able to nudge decision making in my preferred direction ;-)

Mim - you raise a valid point about getting involved.

If I cared enough I would join our PTA and either put a stop to fund raising or take part in deciding which fund raisers we'll do.

This is our first year with school so I guess I was just surprised and annoyed.

(I'm especially offended they would ask me to sell my family's private information to solicitors. That's just wrong.)

Also so many of them seemed to be about 10 cents or 50 cents and just an annoying waste. Your carnival seems like a way better alternative to penny pitching people a little at a time.

It has also occurred to me that they never said what they need funds for. Nor did they explain why their regular budget doesn't cover such expenses.

I'm a bit unclear about how funding works for schools in the US but for our state government funded public school in a fairly affluent area the school budget barely covers the basics.

The P&C donates at least $25 000 a year to the school to cover things ranging from the Early Literacy program and purchasing of library books, through staff development programs and on to photocopying supplies and provision of soap for the kids' bathrooms.

On top of that we also raise money for bigger projects such as providing air-conditioning for classrooms, refurbishing the canteen (it's getting a complete kitchen make-over this year) and even major building works.

So you can see why we do it!

You should make a nuisance of yourself and ask where the fundraising money goes :)

And yes, the selling to solicitors thing just boggles my brain. So very wrong.

Letting children manhandle wild animals for the sake of fundraisers is not healthy for the animals or the kids. It only encourages a mad sense of entitlement (promoted by marketing) and stresses out the animals. You made the right call.