Need Help Beating the School Mom-click!

Hey Cyndy! First off...YIKES!!! So sorry you're having such an experience w/those moms. Bummer they have nothing better to do w/their time & energy. Also stinks that these are the "examples" for their children. UGH!
Anyway, I agree w/the woman who mentioned the Parents' Nite Out! It is a great idea that EVERYONE benefits from & has huge moneymaking potential. You can even offer one each month if you can get the volunteers for it (like the 3rd Friday of each month). We charged $15 for the first kid, then $10 for each additional sibling from 6-10pm. (really not a bad price for the parents if you consider the cost of sitters nowadays...and the kids begged to go since their friends were there!) We fed pizza & juice (Dominoes has that $5 for 5 or more pies deal...so super cheap!).
Also, I love a good 'ol-fashioned snack/bake sale. Again, no overhead (the parents donate the stuff) so can be a big moneymaker. Set up in a good, visable spot once school lets out & everyone's looking for an "after-school snack". Best if you sell each item seprately (ie: 1 cookie for .50c vs. a batch of cookies...)
I also agree that the ones where kids sell stuff STINK. They are a big mess to keep track of the money, distribution, etc...
Good luck :O)

Our PTA just finished raising over $150,000 this year! We do a direct giving party. The booze and food is donated, we have families provide their homes and the staff from the school comes to tell of the programs that will be funded with the money donated. We also have art on and off the wall, catalog sales, bake sales (which usually go to a specific class), movie ticket sales, auction, edukits, and box tops. Don't under estimate the small ones, but use common sense as to how much time v. how much money. Our school has a fundraising meeting NOW to discuss next years calendar so that there is a plan in place and committees that will spearhead them. It is also very helpful to the families so they can decide what fundraisers they will participate in.

Please email me if you have more questions.

I don't know about the PTA, but kudos to you for not giving in to the peer pressure! What a great example for your boys. I wish you the very best for this next year!

One of the fundraisers I liked was the "door to door no more" where they just asked for a donation ( they suggested $100 per kid), I happily made the donation because I don't like the fundraisers where they sell that @#$$% and get the kids all hyped up to get some more @!&** as "prizes". I also liked the candy bars, those are so easy to sell, my husband takes two boxes to work and they are gone in a day! I also did not like the party/auction where they charged $40 a head( especially after I was under the impression my $100 was enough). I do like the spaghetti dinner that is like $6 or $7 and the kids actually had to volunteer to do the work ( it was for outdoor ed), and they had a bake sale where we donated desserts as well and the kids got the proceeds. Definately don't like the coupon books!

My daughter has only been in school for 1 year, but I have a younger brother who is still in elementary school. The fundraisers the last few years seem to be the same old same old and it's getting pretty boring. However, there are some that I do like.

I like when they sell kid's books (scholastic I believe) and have festivals. They even got McDonald's & Wendy's to donate a portion of a purchase made by a school student's family on a certain night to the school.

The books were one's that I thought were GREAT for the kids in the school to have and one's for younger siblings at home. There is not enough reading going on in homes and I believe it is GREAT of a school to promote reading while fundraising at the same time. The festival my daughters school had included mini fundraisers for different classes, grades and the entire school. It was highly profitable and there were even vendors there that donated portions of their proceeds to the school as well. As a work at home mom & one of the vendors at the festival her school had, I feel it was a GREAT way to help the school and the kids attending there. They were even able to get local businesses, parents and others to donate food and other items to be sold and auctioned off.

I can give you more info about the festival if you want more. There are people willing to help a school by donating their time. This type of festival can be done in the fall and spring with different themes. Good luck!

Have a GREAT day!

S.

Hi Cyndy! WOW! Those moms sound crazy! Sorry you are having to deal with adults that act like children. Our PTA uses ABC Fundraising and has been for some years now. It is easy and comes packages and ready to go. I am good friends with the Fundraising chair so if you are interested let me know and I can see if she didn't mind chatting with ya about it. She has said it is the easiest fundraiser out school has dealt with and for every year you use ABC fundraising you get credits with them for bonus money. Good luck!

Hi Cyndy,

I know you didn't really ask for advice about the other moms, but I have to respond to the issue! There are always "those moms" at every school- drives me crazy and it's too bad. I think you are headed in the right direction with not trying to 'win them over', and not letting them push you around. I don't usually like Dr. Phil, but a saying of his is that you teach people how to treat you and I think that is so true. By joining the PTA and finding your own place at this school, you are sending a pretty clear message. But I hope at the same time you find that being involved and going down a different path makes you think about those moms less and care a LOT less. Your involvement and your parenting and your son's qualities will become self evident, and I hope you don't make the mistake of doing things to prove anything to anyone. But kudos to you for not being intimidated.

As far as fundraising. The 'fun run' at my daughter's school was one of the biggest fundraisers. I think it was already mentioned. The kids get sponsors for how many laps they do. This gets the kids more directly involved and it really paid off.

A carnival is also a big one. At her school, they also do a silent auction at the carnival. Each class is responsible for putting together a theme basket to donate for the auction. Like a spa basket, movie lovers basket, etc. In addition, each class did a class project that involved the kids. Some of those were so cute- a cookbook where each family contributed a recipe and the kids wrote them out for the book. Or a big planting pot that was painted with handprints of each kid. People were very clever, so leaving things up to each class was great.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

The first thing you need to know about fundraising, is that no matter which fundraiser you decide you HAVE to really "sell" the idea to the parents, and the students! You have constant reminders and it is always good to have a kick off assembly for the students, to let them know what is at stake and why they want to participate. It is also best to know beforehand exactly what the money is going to and how much needs to be raised. If parents know the money is going to say, smart boards for every classroom, they are more apt to sell. We always have a graph in the front school hall, that was filled in weekly so everyone could see how much left we had to go.
As far as specific fundraisers, there are sooo many, you are going to need to do your research and find the ones that best fir your school. It is best choose one per semester. If you do a lot of little ones parents get tired of selling AND buying. In the Fall we always do the magazine sales. It is pretty idiot proof, and the nice thing is you can renew subscriptions you already have, so students that have grandparents or aunts and uncles in other states can call them up and have them renew any of their subscriptions. Again our school really pushes this fundraiser, it's all anyone ever hears about for like a month! Every year we raise all the money we need from this one funraiser, so in the spring we do a much smaller one, I can;t remember the company but the students all create a picture (our art teacher takes on this responsibility) then parents and grandparents can purchase that picture on ANYTHING (cards, mugs, stationary, key chains etc.) The money that comes in from this fundraiser goes directly back to th teachers. So, however many items a teachers class sells, the money from that sale goes right to the class. We actually have done really well with this one because the teachers are really pushing, and the parents obviously want the teachers to get what they want for their classrooms!
Sorry this is so long! Like I said earlier there are so many fundraisers that you have to research and pick teh one that you think will fit your school/needs. Good Luck! It is a huge job!

The fundraisers at our school that have been very successful were a carnival, then a jog a thon where the kids get sponsers for number of laps, they are small laps but they get out each grade and run for 15 minutes. They raised a lot of money that way as most kids families donated a lump sum.
The carnival at Halloween was great, each classroom was transformed into a different game in each room, kids got to dress up, teachers were there and dressed up and local high school students volunteered to help out. The local fire dept came and gave out goodies and let the kids see the trucks.
They had a pizza place come and sell slices of pizza for like $2.50 a slice and $1 went back to the scool.

Now to address these women, sounds pretty junior high to me. I mean what kind of school allows a pack of pissy women to tattle on a 7 year old? Really? I am amazed that they can do that. If that is the case I wouldn't even participate at that school any longer. For a teacher to buy into it and the principal to allow it is nuts. Everyone sounds like they need to grow up.

Who cares if they like you or not. I certainly don't fit in the norm of "clicks" at my kids school but I could care less. I do what needs done, help when I am needed, be active for my kids sake and that is all I can do. I am not there to make friends and the ones I have are really amazing women. The rest can go fly a kite!
If your son does something wrong is it these women ratting him out and he is really doing it? Or are they making up things? What is the problem they have with you personally?
How can you not like someone you do not know?

I say address these women to their faces, to back off their pettiness and tell them they can choose to not like you, however to leave your son out of that problem! But that is me. If the school is proactively supporting their pettiness, maybe time to find a new school!!!!

Don't push yourself to succeed to impress or make a statement, that the wrong reason to be on the PTA! That makes you as bad as they are.

Hmmmm....nasty grown ups that can't seem to grow up are worse than the cliques in High School!! At least in HS, you expect them. Grown ups are supposed to know better. So sorry about that...but you'll show 'em!! :)

Anyway, I had to raise money for sports programs and one of the the most effective was a "mother's day out" and "parents night out" where volunteer parents/teachers/staff just babysat on the school playground for about 8 hours on a Saturday. Since is was the school I worked for, there was NO overhead and %95 profit (we provided snacks and water for the kids). For the evening, we used the school gym. It was great and easy to organize. GL!

Hi Cyndy,

I haven't been in charge, but I have gone through many fundraisers with my 10-yr old twins.

Believe (www.believekids.com) is a Colorado-based company where you send out the catalogs and order forms and set a return date. You need to have a couple of people to help tally the forms and make sure the money returned matches the total. Since they are in Colorado, the turn-around is fast. They will deliver all the orders (pre-bagged by student) to the school and you can decide how best to distribute. Our school always did a Saturday morning for 2-3 hours where they would have a table for each grade and a spot for each teacher. Two volunteers would have people fill out a slip of paper with kids name, grade and teacher name and then another volunteer would go into the cafeteria to retrieve the bag of items.

ABC Fundraising is almost the same thing as Believe.

Restaurant Nights are a very east way to make money for the school. You arrange with the restaurant for a specific time period on a certain day and then send out flyers annoucing that families who eat at that restaurant on that night, will be donating a certain percentage of their meal to the school. Our school made $500 on a McDonald's night a few weeks ago. Some restaurants require people to say that they are there in support of "X school" and then they put the receipts aside and the school gets a portion of those totals. Others just say that the entire total for the time period designated is used for the calculation. Chick-fil-A and CiCi's pizza are two others that I know about, but I am sure there are many others.

I hope that helps! Have fun with it and good for you for getting involved and ignoring the mom-clique.