School Fundraising

[SCDem]

My son is only 14 months but is in daycare and I'm already being inundated with the "Buy crappy items or magazines to help the school (daycare center)" stuff.

As progressives parents how do y'all deal with this? On the one hand you do want to help out and provide more opportunities for your child (even though I'm already paying $120 a week) but on the other hand you really don't want a magazine or a worthless piece of crap from China that will just sit and collect dust and end up being thrown away.

And my son, again, is only 14 months old :shrug:

[wildeyed]

1. I have my child in a progressive pre-school.

We have many fundraisers, but it is usually stuff I can get behind. We do a children's book sale in the fall. Really high quality merchandise. I do allot of my Christmas shopping for nieces and nephews there.

Bake sale is fun, and the kids enjoy baking stuff to sell and eating stuff we bought.

For the scholarship fund, we do a silent auction. Local businesses donate items, and parents bid on them. Usually stuff I would buy anyway, tickets to the movies, a dinner coupon at a local restaurant. But my $$$'s go to the school instead of the business.

Maybe you could volunteer to organize a fundraiser for the daycare more to your tastes?

[SCDem]

3. I have participated in some stuff

Like there was a book sale last fall and I did get some books from there and then of course I sent in a big check for the Cystic Fibrosis Mini-march they had. But just a week after sending in money for that (which I know benefited Cystic Fibrosis not the center) they come out with a Spring Fundraising catalog. Sometimes this stuff gets annoying and overwhelming (pocket book wise) and I just didn't expect it to start this early!

[SoCalDem]

2. Nancy Reagan said it best.. "Just Say No"

I never allowed my kids to sell ANYTHING..And whenever the teachers sent stuff home anyway, I would send them a thank you note for the (whatever it was) and tell them we would enjoy it.. Of course I would get a phone call telling me that we "had" to sell it.. I would remind them that I wrote them in the beginning of the year telling them that my son(s) would NOT be selling anything, so when something arrived home with them, we would consider it a gift..

That usually did it :evilgrin:

[SCDem]

4. That's a good mantra to have!

Just as a new parent I didn't expect it to start this early and then it seems like there is so much pressure that comes along with it. If there is a book fundraiser or a bake sale or an art auction or something I would be more inclined to give then a catelog of worthless crap made in some foreign country far cheaper than what it is being sold for. I try to buy blue and local.

Thanks for your advice!

[SW FL Dem]

5. I learned early on that it was easier to just send the school PTA/PTO

$20 as a donation - that is average amount of profit they make on wrapping paper/candy/paper sales per student. They were happy and I didn't have to buy crap I don't need.

[John Q. Citizen]

6. that's what I do too. The school makes all the money that way and

I don't end up with stuff I don't realy want. A win win!

[CornField]

7. Our family does not sell

I don't like that schools, preschools, sports teams and everyone else thinks that we should hit up our friends, family and co-workers to buy cheap crap. LOL!

I make it perfectly clear that none of my children will be selling anything for anyone. If a group or school needs certain merchandise or funds for a larger project, they need to ask me directly for a donation. I encouraged my daughter's elementary school to set up a giving tree in lieu of doing a fundraiser. (You wouldn't believe how many parents took time to phone me directly and thank me!)

[mopinko]

9. what do you mean- a giving tree?

this stuff drives me crazy. i don't let my kids do it either. so much of these things are so poorly designed. no receipts for the buyers, so you hand off your money to a kid at your door, and wonder if you will ever see the overpriced crap that you don't want anyway. if i thought it ended up at the school that would be one thing. but i live near a neighborhood that is an open air drug market. the kids from that school come to my door, and you can just tell that they are from screwed up homes. you know you are buying momma a rock. but you hate to be an ass to a kid who needs a little kindness the most. just bs. to paraphrase an old button- give the schools what they need, make the pentagon have the bake sale.

but anyway, what do you mean a giving tree?

[CornField]

10. It's basically a Christmas tree, but the ornaments are paper tags

School staff members make up wants/wishes on the tags (i.e., "The third grade needs a world globe") and hang them on the tree. The parents select tags from the the tree and make the purchase for the school.

It worked really well -- especially when we announced that we were doing this in lieu of a fundraiser.

Since some parents worried that we would be excluding the community from helping with our school, we also did an aluminum can drive. (Here in Iowa, you get 5 cents per can when you recycle.) The general public was invited to donate their empty pop cans. This went really well too. It was, however, a complete pain in the butt to take all those cans to the recycling center. LOL!

[fortyfeetunder]

8. Direct donation

I don't participate in the sale campaigns because there are several kids in the neighborhood and I can't sell this stuff at work. So what I do is make donations where it's needed most. For example, we made charter memberships to our new school's PTSA, donated books, games, volunteer in the classroom, give the teacher items she needs, and I am making a gift basket for the school auction.

[minvis]

11. Direct Donation is the best

I have a six year old son in a public school in Chicago. His school's PTA has given up doing fundraisers where they sell things. The last two years they have asked parents, neighborhood residents and businesses in the area to give direct donations. They have raised over $20,000 each year that has helped to pay for the music program for each grade K-8.

[July]

14. I have mixed feelings about this.

I would rather give a direct donation than ask my kid to sell (I've always thrown all the sales materials out), but why doesn't the school district pay for the music program? I don't really think of that as a PTA responsibility. Is the school district strapped?

[minvis]

15. Yes

The whole city of Chicago is one school district, so it is definitely strapped for money. The setup here is different as well. The school district pays for the teacher's salaries, maintenance, etc. but each school is given a lump sum of money to spend how they see fit. Unfortunately, most of that money is usually spent to buy additional teachers/staff since what the school board provides is not sufficient to keep class sizes down and usually does not provide, gym, art or music teachers or librarians. It is a mess. The long and short of it is that yes the PTA shouldn't have to raise money for a music program, but it does here.

[Fleshdancer]

12. wow!

I didn't experience fundraisers for daycare...that would take me off guard too!

I'm going to make the assumption (true or not) that you can't afford to pay more than what you're already paying because, for most families, that's the reality. I would recommend carving out some time each month for volunteer work or to donate gently used items to your school like toys, bottles, etc. If you have any friends or family members who have things they can donate, then go for it. Maybe, for your son's next birthday, you could ask your family members to make a donation to the school in his honor instead of sending a gift?

[FourStarDemocrat]

13. Fundraising in daycare is a little too much...

Fortunately, we didn't experience that here and I usually u sed only part time daycare when my kids were young. Prices for full time quality daycare around here, in suburban NY are extremely high to begin with, averaging about $1400. per month.

I do get exhausted from all the fundraising we are asked to do throughout the year though for their public schools, elementary and middle school. Not that the funds aren't needed for important things. But I agree with others that it's easier to send a direct donation than to sell things time and again. Unfortunately, not everyone would give without an occasion/event. At my children's schools parent volunteers organize fun things to do to raise money such as holding Pasta Nights, Evening Movies, special concerts, etc for this purpose.