School Fundraisers

School Fundraisers

I know I have several readers from all over the world and I want to know, do your schools send kids out, selling for fund-raisers?

Raise money for new playground equipment! 

Earn money for our music program! 

Send the band to the Rose Bowl! 

This is all well and good but my 8-year-old brought up an interesting point last week.

“You know what mom?”

“What baby?”

“I’ve never seen this new playground equipment we are always raising money for.”

I thought about his statement and he was absolutely right. I mean, I’m not suggesting that the teacher’s lounge currently has a hot tub in it, a servi bar and a masseuse but I wonder what kind of playground we are trying to earn money for.

The Fundraiser Hustle

In 2017, it’s suggested not to fundraise door to door as you never know when a Jeffrey Dahmer will answer. This is nice as a homeowner because you no longer get kids banging on your door to buy shit. It also sucks because suddenly you are forced to peddle the goods as you are the only one connected to anyone that can buy, with the exception of grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Additionally, these fundraiser companies have gotten smart and suggest you post it on all of your social media outlets. They even give you a link to post and if something is bought via that link and you enter your kid’s code, they get credit.

This semi rant today is because I took my 8-year-olds fundraiser into work last week. He is selling mumpkins. It’s a mum, in a pumpkin pot. It’s pretty cute and I bought one though I know my mumpkin’s “hair” will probably go from ruby-red to brown in a matter of days.

‘These are hardy flowers Hot Mess. You can’t kill them.’ Is what I hear in the back of my head, as I flipped through the pages.

‘Yeah? Watch me,’ I respond back, confident of my brown thumb abilities.

The Fundraiser Prizes

As a little hot mess, we would be herded into the gym for a fundraiser assembly. We would take a seat on the cold gym floor, folding our legs criss-cross apple sauce. After the principle would quiet us down and announce what the fundraiser was for, we clapped as the seedy salesman took the microphone from her. I always felt like he looked like Mr. Bean. Always in a black suit and tie. He was dead inside but pretended to be overly excited about what he was doing.

30 minutes later, you had 500 kids high on the possibilities of prizes, ready to sell the shit out of wrapping paper. They would always bring the prizes to the assembly to show off. They would announce how you “only had to sell 30 items” to get a new Walkman. As I walked out, I would do the math in my head,

‘if my mom buys 4 items, I can get my one grandma to buy 2 and the other to buy 1. I can go down to the restaurant and beg my dad’s employees to buy, that’s gotta account for 5. That leaves me with….um……18 items to sell door to door.’

The Results

We sold 5 mumpkins. They ranged in price from $20-$35 so they aren’t cheap. Because we made it to the 5th mumpkin, thanks to my sister buying the last one he needed, he now gets the following prizes:

  • 1 pack of Pokemon cards (as if we don’t have enough already)
  • 2 Pokemon figurines (this is stupid)
  • 1 Emoji keychain (they don’t drive and this too is stupid)

Now, if you sold 15 mumpkins, you would get…wait for it…..2 fidget spinners…….

Until the next fundraiser….cheers!

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