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!
I remember selling 3lb tubs of cookie dough to fund my band trip to Disney World. I think I sold somewhere around 100lbs of cookie dough total which was great- it paid for my trip 100%, but then I had to pick them up and deliver them, and by ‘I’, I mean my mom and I.
I recently got suckered into buying from a co-worker’s 5 year old son’s fund raiser. I bought a $12 garlic press that broke after the 2nd time of using it, but the kid gave me a hug when he personally delivered it to me which was cute…
Well then, the hug was totally worth it! I know, you always do feel pressured. I’m glad you had your trip 100% paid for! That is soooo awesome!!!
O-M-G I hated fundraising!! We did chocolate bars. But I lived in the country and most of my friends all lived on the same street. We would take turns going to the crazy lady with the barn where I got hurt and had to get stitches or the lady with the big scary dog, and then the house across the street’s mom was at war with my mom (like death threats type of war) so I never got to go to that house. But I never sold enough to win any of the prizes.
Jesus….where did you live, the Gaza strip?
Hahaha!! No in a small country town of about 1000 people max
Well it sounded borderline dangerous!
Naw. It was a “everyone knows everyone else cos they have all lived here their whole lives and outsiders are shunned” type of deal
Yes, they are hilarious. The only ones that I really ask for donations are those that are healthy causes that support a bigger issue such as heart disease or childhood hunger. I do what I can for the rest.
That’s a smart approach! Wait till Munch is selling and wants a dumb keychain so you end up buying 3 boxes of cheese ball mix.
LMAO. A key chain? I’ll buy him one.
It would be cheaper then buying the dumb fundraisers! LOL!
My fundraisers were always for “boosters” and other vague things—basically promising that they do lots of good with the money without ever telling you what.
Offspring quit bringing me that shit years ago. They were selling cheesecakes, which sounded delicious and I decided I didn’t want to wait six weeks so I went out and bought one. Then I sat down and looked up how much the prize he wanted would cost and showed him how we could just order that (I don’t remember, some stupid toy) and, even with the cheesecake I’d just bought, we’d saved about $350.
It’s all so stupid bc your right, you never see where the money actually goes. Side note, I wonder if I could ask for a breakdown of it.
I did a lot of pie-selling trying to raise money for my trip to Disney. Well, my mom would prod me in the back and family gatherings to ask aunts and uncles who wanted to buy a pie. For this same trip, my parents would also volunteer to work concerts and sell beer, which would earn money towards my trip– there wasn’t even any pretending that I was involved in that one!
Also, 5 Mumpkins and you get all that? It sounds like they’re trying to dissuade you from selling! Haha!
This reminds me of taking my kids to the game room. After spending $30 on tokens and cashing in the tickets they got, they had to share an eraser in the shape of a Pokemon. ( This was years ago and my mind is foggy, it could of been $10 or it could of been $40. It may not of even been a eraser. I do remember it was a cheap piece of crap that my kids fought over all the way home.)
Paula, it was probably you started off spending $10 but 5 minutes after they ran out of tokens, you ended up spending $30 more because you had nothing left and didn’t want to argue! It’s like a casino for kids!