We do a read-a-thon. You can pledge per page or a flat rate. I think most all "- a- thons" do well since there isn't a whole lot of cost to do them and the kids like being active.
Some kind of festival or carnival. Our school has a fall festival every October and it brings in over $20,000 each time which is amazing for a school with less than 800 kids.
The teachers all set up little games in the classrooms and the prizes are bought in bulk from Oriental trading. The kids can either buy tickets to play or buy a wrist band for $10 for unlimited games. They have a raffle with donated items and sell the tickets for it for $1 each. They also ask parents of certain grades to send in hot dogs and the other grades send in buns or cookies. The dinner is a hot dog or bbqsandwich (donated by a local company) cookies and chips and a drink for $3 or $5 depending on what they get. There is also a kiss the pig competition where they donate money towards a staff member kissing a pig and a bake sale that is part of it too. Last year they even set up a bounce house that was $1 to jump for 5 mins. It made a ton of money.
The whole games part was only 2 hours then the raffle and auction was an hour long. They auctioned off items made by each class.
There are other local schools who do this type of thing in the spring and make it a spring carnival instead of a fall festival but it's pretty much the same thing.
Another thing the school is actually doing tomorrow is having a glow in the dark pep rally where they sell glow sticks to the students for .50 up to $2 and they do a pep rally in the dark.
There's also been craft fairs in the gym where they sell tables for $20 each and the PTA sells snacks and drinks that have been donated. We've had yard sales in the parking lot where people can buy spaces for $10 each and again there are volunteers to sell refreshments for the school. Both of those usually bring in at least a few hundred to a thousand dollars.
If the school isn't involved in them already make sure they do the boxtops and campbells labels as well as the terracycle program with the juice pouches and other things. Our school collects the empty gluesticks and things like that from the classrooms to send in and it brings in a good amount for something that would be thrown in the garbage otherwise.
Anything where you get to keep all the $$ is the best option.
You can do a walk a thon... or race, etc... we do a "fall stampede" where all the parents are asked for a set amount per kid (this year was $125), and then the kids just run around a track for a set period of time. It's actually kinda silly... started out as a walk a thon thing and evolved to this somehow. With all the online tools for collecting donations, it should be a lot easier.
We also have sold discount cards for little league... just go around to local businesses and ask for a donation in exchange for putting them on your card with a small discount (BOGO, 15%off, etc...)... then sell the cards to family and friends for $10-20.
We do Market Day each month, that brings in around $2000 - $2500 each month.
We do the supermarket programs, where get cash back from sales, Target.
Except for Race for Education, all of our fundraisers are passive, we don't sell anything.
We sell candles every year and raise about 6 grand, we also have a big carnival in the spring and that usually brings in about 5 grand or so. I have heard some school do walk a thons with a lot of success.
Basket raffles always do well at our school.
Our elementary school has a read-a-thon each fall. This year the students raised $33,000. They also host a spaghetti dinner and silent auction each spring.
The other elementary school in our district had a fit-a-thon. I'm not sure how much they raised.
Other events I've seen include pancake breakfasts, school carnival, and sing-a-longs.
Is there any way to make tying shoes fun?
- jessr1204
on Jan. 21, 2013 at 4:26 PM