Fundraiser - Foley,MN

I wish schools would go back to selling candy bars for $1. It would be so much easier to make sales. This year, my child's school is doing the frozen cookie dough and tote bags for $14 each! The totes are ugly and who has $14 for cookies?? She has to make 3 sales to earn a prize, so between Grandma, Grandpa and me, she's made it, but I'm not gonna push this one. She's too shy to do it herself and everyone that I know has kids doing the same thing, so it's hard to make it work.

I threw the forms away as soon as they came home with them. The school gets the kids excited so they bug the parents and they sell the items. The products are WAY overpriced and most of it is junk.

My kids were upset and I just told them the truth. They moved on and are fine with it.

We don't do school fundraisers in our house unless it is for an extracurricular activity that we specifically signed up for (like cheer or Boy Scouts). I return the blank form to the school with a check for $10 attached as our "donation," which is usually more than what the school would get if they actually sold anything.

The prizes are all junk (unless you really sell a TON) so I just get my kids a "prize" for NOT selling anything.

Good luck!

Personally, I was estatic when our school went to one spagetti dinner fundraising. Thats it - no others. It's huge, and we don't have to sell cheap overpriced items (that no one wants) and only get a small percentage back. Most of the food is donated so it's almost pure profit. And people respond better knowing that there will not be any other fundraising throughout the year. Talk to the PTA or PTO or who ever sets these things up and tell them how you feel about thier 'fundraiser' then take you child volunteering and show him what true chairity is about

I hate these things. In our situation my husband and I are better off than my sister or my parents. My husband's parents we support. My work bands selling of this stuff at work. My husband is the boss, so inappropriate to sell to your employees. That leaves who? We usually just write a check for whatever the amount we decide. My kids know we don't have family to sell to. Can't let them go door to door anymore. Can't sell outside of stores any more. Wish this would go away.

While we've been known to buy the occasional wreath or tin of popcorn from the boyscouts, we don't sell anything. I just send the blank forms/stuff back to the school. I don't feel like it's my kids' job to raise money for the school.

I help out in other ways by volunteering or participating in fundraisers that don't involve active selling (like the charity sock hop or restaurant night). My kids don't feel bad that they didn't get any prizes either as most of the prizes stink anyway.

I may have misread the post, but I wouldn't tell your son he isn't going to meet the goal. I think instead you should ask him how HE plans to meet this goal. Tell him what you will do to support him (the payment, etc.) ask him what he wants to do and let him come up with the ideas and execute them.
Personally, I hate these things. (even when I was a kid, I hated them and sold the least amount of GS cookies in my whole troop and didn't even care - LOL)
but I realize that there are valuable lessons to be learned from these stinking things - including what it feels like if they don't reach a goal.
That said, my five year old came home last year with the same form so I asked him what he thought he should do and I put some parameters (no door to door, no standing outside the grocery store, etc) and he came up with a plan and while I helped him a little bit because I am the parent and he needs to be safe, he did the "selling" himself.
FYI: consisted of calling gma and gpa and setting out a sheet at my office and doinh a 'candy stand' at my husband's office for an afternoon. He set a realistic goal (sell one box so he could particpate in the jump party) and he did!

I agree that school fundraisers are too high priced. Personally, I think they should sell candy bars. Everyone can afford a dollar or two for a candy bar. Much easier and more affordable for everyone. I refuse to let my kids participate in school fundraisers because of the price alone. Maybe if more parents refused to participate they would eventually get the idea. Just my 2 cents.

We're dealing with this right now with the WAY OVERPRICED boyscout popcorn. My son's good friend has already sold $1200 worth in 3 days and my son has only sold $200. I'm thrilled at $200, but is getting very frustrated that every house he goes to says they already bought from his friend. (his friend's mom came over into our neighborhood to sell, and even drove her son to a neighboring town. I don't agree with that at all!)
I told him to relax and do his best, encouraged him to ask people, but not to be disappointed when they said no. Kids have to learn that they may not be the top seller. If your child wants to go selling door to door then get out of your comfort zone and go with her. Don't squelch her enthusiasm, but don't push her either. Let her lead.

I was PTA President at 2 different schools. We tried not to make fund raising too much of a competition for the kids.. Instead we made sure every child that sold anything, was given a small prize.. I think we gave a free scoop at the neighborhood Baskin Robbins.. (They donated it).

We used to tell the parents to just tell their kids the truth. That if parents did not want to participate or did not believe in asking others to purchase, just let their kids know.

Our child even though her mom was was the PTA President (me) I purchased a few items I knew I would use and then I gently mentioned to our friends that we had a fundraiser and if they wanted or or were interested, we would be happy to drop by and show the the info.. Some people (usually people without kids) did want to look and sometimes order.

What surprised us is when in middle school the Volleyball coach did a Cookie dough fundraiser and sent the flier home with every kid in her classes (even health classes). It was like in March and my daughter sold over 100 buckets.. The cookie dough was so good and my daughter reminded parents that there would be a lot of "spring events" coming up for end of the school year. This was an easy thing to bake. The other thing is you could scoop out to bake 4 cookies or dozens of cookies.. I still get request for that cookie sale and my daughter is in college!

I have had my girl choose a prize on the sheet - a reasonable one that she would get for selling a reasonable amount and just bought it for her! It's usally less than the one item I would've bought from her. I also politiely decline when coworkers are selling things.

You're definitely not alone. These drive me crazy! We have fundraiser forms on the kitchen counter right now..... I really like the idea below about just going out and buying your child a prize for NOT selling - you can make a donation to the school and buy a little "prize" for less than you'd spend on junk you don't need.

I'd find out what percentage of the sales actually go to the school and probably would write a check for the amount that the school would have received if my kid had sold X amount of whatever. And like others have said, the prizes are usually pretty cheesy. I figure my girls get enough practice with fundraising sale etiquette from selling Girl Scout cookies once a year (yes, we still walk around the neighborhood together to do this) and I'm thankful that their school has ditched the door-to-door fundraising sales and instead has a few fundraising events (halloween pumpkin patch festival, dads' golf tournament, etc.) and an appeal for a recommended per-child donation to the school's annual fund which we know pays for a huge amount of the expenses for things like library, art, music, and classroom assistants.

If there are any teachers reading this post: WHY do our schools need money? What are they trying to buy? Does the school really need it? Aside from the fact that schools are either underfunded or aren't budgeting correctly, can we use this money shortfall as teachable moment?

Would it be better to put forth a "problem," such as: hey kids, we need to raise $500 to go on a field trip. Let's come up with some solutions to try to get it. And then facilitate a full-class discussion on different ways to get the money. That way the kids might come up with some creative methods, and take ownership of the issue. Instead of grown-ups telling them that they all have to compete as sales staff. (Is the purpose of this exercise to prime our kids to be better furniture sales staff in the future?)

Maybe one of the solutions might be: "we don't need to go on a field trip to study trees...let's do a walking field trip and study trees right in our own neighborhood." Or, "let's do a study on how much energy we're wasting as a school and figure out ways to save money."

Doesn't answer your question, but I thought I'd bring up a little "outside of the box" perspective.

I think the simplest solution is to put it in your child's hands. If he wants to earn the prizes, then he needs to go out and sell!

Renae,

I think it depends on how old your child is as to how much time and effort they can spend on their own in selling candy, cookies etc. for the school fundraiser. Clearly you do not have the time or desire to participate and little ones need parental supervision and assistance.

Fundraisers benefit the school and your children and I think it’s important that everyone participate as much as possible. Sadly this is not the case in fundraisers or other school activities that require parent participation. It is usually the same parents putting in most of the time and effort.

I don't agree that every child should be rewarded for just the minimal sales or participation. Healthy competition teaches a child that sometime you win and sometimes you don't. The more effort we put forth, the greater the rewards.

Blessings……

In our district we do O. annual fundraiser.

My son usually hits the target for the thing he wants most though.

Still, I find it exclusionary and over-the-top.

They say right in the letter that each kid REALLY only needs about 5 sales to meet their goal, but the hype for more-more-more is ridiculous.

i refused to let the school pimp my kids out-just seems to me they could use the money where they need it instead of their prizes-which were pretty cheesy to begin with-i paid for all their needs at school.as a single working parent that wasnt so easy.but im just fully against the schools pimping out kids for their extra cash needs.plus to try to keep up with homework being preoccupied about winning...yea this is a thorn for me.

I hate them too, because a WII is too tempting, and my son gets way too excited about it, and they aren't allowed to sell door to door- although if we lived in a family neighborhood where you know everyone, that wouldn't be a huge issue. They are selling EVERYTHING, I tried to only put out the cookie dough sheet, however. He was so excited to sell stuff to meet his "goal" that he spent his own hard earned money on a pair of earrrings for his mom(me) even though I tried to dissuade him. We, as children, had to sell stuff too, but it was one thing- not everything. My husband refuses to support based on the use of the money they raise. Thinking we pay taxes for a reason- computers or whatever is needed should be supplied.
And honestly, last year we didn't sell anything- and although my now 9 year old didn't forget we didn't sell anything, he also didn't complain about it at the time=- out of sight out of mind

We have taken a different route.
We donate to the activity/sport/event that is doing the fund raising.
We thought our children would be embarrassed/humilated to not be in the pool for the prizes, but they actually thanksed us for not haveing them peddle the products.

We have recieved donations from family members for the fundraining projects, and forward this to the person in charge of collecting the funds.

We preferr to ive 100 % to the fundraising, not the percentage they get if it is selling a product.
There has been a couple times we contributed to the product, it was connected to a bonus the school would receive for all students.

Otherwise, we give to the cause, not the products.
And I do agree...the products are something that we usually dont need or use.

Our school did away with the "selling" fundraisers and asks parents to donate $25 (if they can). So much easier!

You are not alone. If you find others who agree with you, perhaps you can start an open discussion at the next PTA meeting. It is the involved parents that make the decisions regarding these issues.

To see an idea for a healthy, ongoing fundraiser, visit our PTO website: http://pto.myshaklee.com .

Regarding your child, just explain your thoughts about a donation and how more of the $ goes to the school than if you purchase something. Of course, you can "reward" them for their patience with a little, cheap, plastic toy, too! ;)