It seems that my kids are always bringing home something about some da*m fund raiser. I'm not sure why I have a bad attitude about them- but I do. First off, the "stuff" we are asked to peddel is...crappy and I feel so intrusive asking people to buy cookie dough at $14.00 per half full bucket or how about some expensive wrapping paper? They send home sheets to dazzel the kids like "win an IPOD by selling 150 cases of candy" to my dd that seems like a reachable goal and it always ends in disapointment. My ds in high school comes home with this- please buy, outright, a case of candy bars for $45.00 and sell them at your leasuire. times are tough, I need $45.00 in my gas tank! this is on top of please send $35.00 to help support the Forensics tournament. My kids get school pics taken TWICE a school year, and don't forget the class photo! All this coupled with "Spirit Wear" and expensive lunches and a field trip at $25.00 per student PLUS as I voluteered to chaperone, I had to pay $25.00!!!!!!!!!
It just seems that everything comes off sounding like a racket - anybody else feel this way?

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Love, J.

I don't always like the idea of fundraising. It does seem intrusive and the prizes that my kids want, like yours, require selling a ridiculous amount of items. I've been on the PTA however and know why they have the fundraisers and know that at my daughters' tiny school it is necessary. So what I do is pick the fundraiser that we will participate in and do what we can. My kids learned quickly that the BIG prize is unattainable so they don't even ask about it anymore. We do not participate in every fundraiser, we just can't. Let me tell you how it's been at my dds' school.
August 15: first day of school
August 17: fundraiser info came home (selling smart cards, which we did participate in)
Sept. 2: info came home on 2nd fundraiser, which would occur in a couple of weeks(a car wash and donut sale) We did not participate in those fundraisers, (the car wash/donut sale).
As soon as school starts, info comes in on the biggest fundraiser of the year which is the school carnival, dinner and auction. It'll be Oct. 4th. Each class puts together a themed basket and those get auctioned off. I have 2 kids, therefore 2 baskets to donate to. The bad part? My 3rd grader has 12 kids in her class, one boy just came in this week. Out of those 11, so far my dd and 1 boy has donated to the basket. Yeah...great, right? They also ask for food items for the dinner, each class has a different item to bring in. They ask for toys for the prizes for the carnival and then they ask that you come and buy tickets, play games and win back the toys you already bought. And don't forget to buy dinner at school that night....the items that you sent in!! But, I will donate a few items for that and my kids do enjoy going to the carnival so we'll do that. And guess what? In the spring, the fundraisers will start again. But we will not participate in those. I can only do so much.

I feel your pain and I am the chairperson of the fundraising committee at my DS's school. We were all pretty tired of it, too, so we tried a non-fundraiser. We asked parents for direct donations is lieu of selling crap no one needs. So far it's not a huge success, but we have another week.

We also do a spaghetti dinner with silent auction in the Spring that all the local businesses donate to. tag1114, you should see about what your school can get from local businesses for yours. We have almost zero outlay on ours, local restaurants donate the food, local businesses donate the auction items. We make a ton of money off that each year, so we don't have to do any other fundraisers, fortunately.

You should give feedback to your PTA about how you feel. It stinks to be nickeled and dimed to death and then guilted the rest of the way. Let them know how you feel and maybe something can change. Unfortunately, sometimes PTA leadership gets bogged down into the "this is how we've always done it" frame of mind and they need a little kick to get out of the rut. Of course, it was not keeping my mouth shut that got me the chairperson position

Renee

Fundraisers are a pain but the kids really benifit from these. Our PTA has a lot of great programs that the kids get because of the money from the fundraisers. And some people really like the expensive wrapping paper. LOL I don't because I get mine at 75% off after Christmas at Target. I do usually buy a couple things from each of my children. I really don't have family to ask and all the neighbors have their own children selling the same stuff. I do know that the wrapping paper fundrasier earns the most money at our school.

tag1114 I hear you about the basket. We do the basket only for each class. I am usually the roomparent and think that the basket ends up being how much does the roomparent want to spend on it because there are so few people that donate. I am lucky that I usually find great things on clearance at Target to fill the basket with for not a lot of money. This year our school has construction going on so there will be no carnival or auction. I bet that will take a big bite out of the money the PTA has this year.

When my kids were in school we had very little money. I HATED fundraisers. I agree that they were EXTREMELY overpriced and I felt that actually the company was making most of the profit while the school/club got very little.
Once I was the magazine chair for my dd girl scout troop. It was the first and last time I allowed her to ask our relatives. They all wanted to support her and chose several of the most expensive magazines thinking her troop would make more money. NO. It seemed that they only made at that time 75 cents per magazine (this was over 10 years ago). I was horrified. I would have gathered up all the subscriptions and rather given 5 dollars to the troop.

I never allowed my kids to participate because it was first, embarrassing to ask relatives when there were so many children in each family of their own, and second because each item was overpriced, and third they would never get the top amazing prize---BUT the school and teachers really push it and they always felt embarrassed. But $15 for a box of oranges that you could get for 2 for $1 at the market?

I probably scarred them for life, lol, and probably have to pay way more than that for their years of therapy.

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I absolutely hated them when I was in school. I can remember the gathering in the school gym, the spokesperson really hyping all of us kids up and then I would go out to sell and everyone I went to seemed like they hated me upon answering their door. I would always feel so down and out when I came home.

Edited to add - if I remember correctly, the school didn't get that much of a profit anyway.

Well, the older they get, it seems the more the fundraisers cost. LOL. My DD just went into junior high and we don't have a PTA but it's the different "clubs that sell fundraisers" she is in sports so both of us (parent & kid) have to work so many times in the concession stand (raisees huge amounts of money for the sports programs) for either a softball, baseball, volleyball or basketball game. The cheerleaders are selling school hoodies for $30 (which we did buy one from her friend) and t-shirts for $15, the softball team is selling shirts for $20, another one of the teams will be selling jackets for $75 (which we will buy one of those too), FFA sells sausage for $15, choir sells fruit for $15-$30, the Library Council will be selling cookbooks for $10 to raise money for library books, then there are the various dinners by different clubs: Indian Taco, Thanksgiving, Brisket, Baked Potato, Choir dinner theater, sports banquet. Then there are the car washes and the garage sales, those are the ones I know about, I'm sure there are many more.

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visit my homepage http://penny.mycoupons.com/

I hate fundraisers!
DS knows now when he gets the info that it just isn't happening. He came home all hyped up for years whenever they pushed the latest fundraiser. He wanted the big prize, the party, the limo ride.... or whatever it was. I took him to the dollar store one time and let him get a few of the exact items that were lower level prizes and he seemed to understand it better after that. ( knowing he would have had to sell xxx items to get a few $ store things made him realize he wasn't getting the ipod or whatever!)
We have no local family, & I am not letting him go door to door to other families who are likely selling the same crap so we just don't do it.
I would gladly give cash! That said.....
I buy pictures every time ( ok, not last time , he was making such a face....lol), I love the Scolastic book fairs since they actually get him excited about reading, He has the "spirit-wear" t-shirts and gym bag, and I do look to see if "I" would be willing to pay $15 for 3 oz of chocolates... but I am not pushing it on anyone else!
ok, done...off the soap-box now.

I don't have any kids but I HATE fundraisers with a passion.

Correction, I hate MOST fundraisers. I would be willing, depending on the price, to buy coupon books or discount cards for businesses I already go to.

I would gladly pay good money to kids who are willing to rake my yard, wash my car, weed my flowers, etc. That I could get behind 100% because I would get something I can actually use and the kids would get the lesson that work brings rewards.

Don't even get me started on the organizations that have kids out begging for change outside of stores!

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Jesus SAVES by shopping smartly and using double coupons!

Gah! Joy you cursed me, middle son brought home one today, it'll go back with him tomorrow I didnt even open it

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Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
http://bookcrossing.com

My other favorites
www.paperbackswap.com
www.wheresgeorge.com
www.geocaching.com

I write a letter to our childrens' teachers at the beginning of each school year. At the bottom, I simply explain that we do not participate in fund raisers. The kids can go to the rah-rah cheerleading "get a free Wii" rallies, but they also understand they won't be taking part in selling.

When it is time to hand in fundraiser orders, I stop @ the school and drop off a few supplies for the teacher which have of course, been purchased very cheap or better yet, free with coupons and rebates. In addition, I drop off a $10 check (per child) payable to the school and marked for whatever project that fundraiser was for. So far, the teachers love our system and are very grateful for the supplies as well.

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I want to keep ALL of my paycheck and eliminate the pyramid scheme known as Social Security (there is no lockbox ). Do you want the same thing? www.fairtax.org

Fundraisers are worthless. The amount of time and money that is put into them is astronomical. Then they dangle "prizes" for the kiddies who sell the most. So the kiddies hit up friends, family and neighbors. It can be dangerous. They start asking strangers to buy the crap. Standing outside of grocery stores is ridiculou. Spirit wear? Let the kid earn the cash to buy it. Scholastic books....how about a library. School pictures are a joke. You know how much more you can get at any Sears portrait studio or even your own digital camera. Use your Target visa or Debit and make sure you have your school listed as the recipient of the 1% back. By all means volunteer at the concession stands. Hungry people are at the game and don't mind paying for a hotdog. But who really wants to pay $11 for some substandard chocolate? When they sent the fundraiser books home with my kids I sent them right back. I refuse to be bullied into this crap. The one "fundraiser" that I saw that was super succesful was a "can barn". The school needed a new all weather track and the budget would not allow it. We all got together and used a donated shed. it was set up in the school parking lot. People were encouraged to donate their soda cans. The student council took care of taking them to the recycling center. It took 2 years and the track was completely paid for. There were some donated supplies and tons of volunteer time. This actually taught responsibily and how a community can work together for a common goal without having to resort to overpriced stationary and fruit.

We do get donations from local businesses, including SOME food but they're very limited on what they can donate, food wise....for health reasons. In other words, they don't want to get sued if anyone gets sick from the food they donated and perhaps the school handled it improperly. Our carnival/auction is our biggest fundraiser and we do make a lot of money but they still have the other fundraisers also.

Our elementary school has been doing a stress-free fundraiser for the past couple of years. We don't have to sell anything, but this year, they wanted a $20 donation per child. I thought this was a bit steep, on top of them wanting TWO PTA members per child-huh? I have two kids at this school. I sent in $20 total for the fundraiser, and DH and I each joined the PTA. I donate stuff throughout the year, and help out with my time. For my h.s. kid, I linked my Harris Teeter card up to his school-they will donate a percentage of what I buy. In the past, I have helped out with numerous band fundraisers, and baseball fundraisers-I realize those kids really need the money to do what they are doing. Here's the best kicker: Our oldest son started college last month. DH got a phone call tonight from the school. First they asked how Patrick was adjusting, then they wanted to know if we had any questions, or if we could think of any improvements-then they went in for the kill...."We are looking for supporters to help out those kids, who might be in need, with their tuition. We help out a lot of kids who just want a good education." WTF? The in-state kids pay about $7000 per year. We just took out a loan for our out-of-state kid for $26K-that's for ONE year. We begged for $$, and we still got the highest tuition rate possible-no breaks at all. DH was really nice to the solicitor, she was pretty lucky she got him and not me on the phone-she would have had one more hole for the wiping!

My son's school doesn't do fundraisers but the PTA asks for a $75 donation per child. I did not do it - times are tough - plus we pay out of pocket for therapies for my son (he has autism) which run in the thousands. I will do the little things - donate food for his rooms parties or send in the $1 they wanted during the book fair to help by books for the library.

If the fundraiser packets make it to my home, they either go right back where they came from or immediately in the trash. I hate them with a passion and I'd much rather write the school a check for $15-$20 as a donation..... it's gotta be more money than they'd make with my dd going around for hours selling crap.

The only fundraiser I participate in is Girl Scout Cookies. I look forward to it and I buy 20 + boxes every year. It's worth it, in my opinion.

Arizona has a school tax credit system that if done correctly by the donor (rules apply!), will net the school a lot of money and cost the donor NOTHING... here are some details:

"You don't have to have a child in school, but you must have a tax liability for at least the amount of your donation. In other words, if you only owe $100, you can't get a $200 tax credit. The school also has to be qualified by the Arizona Department of Revenue. All Arizona public schools qualify, and there are some special schools that do, too. If you don't owe Arizona taxes this year, but you feel you will in the next few years, you may carry forward your school tax credit for up to five consecutive taxable years.

These monies are not used to fund regular school activities. The donations you make can only be used for extra curricular activities, like sports programs, field trips, after school tutoring programs, after school arts programs, etc. You are allowed to specify which programs you'd like your donation to support."

I totally agree.

I hate to see kids standing in the intersections with a bucket asking for money - EARN THE MONEY!

We have always found that selling the large size fund-raising candy bars for $1 are probably the easiest thing to do. Everybody will buy those because the candy bar is so large that it is actually worth $1 for the quality of the chocolate. I'm not talking about the M &M's, etc. -- I mean the candy bars that are specifically for fund-raising: the orange chocolate, caramel, peanut butter, krispie bars. Those sell themselves -- literally. You can put a box on a counter and simply collect the money.

Our school has a car wash but guess who washes the cars......YEP, the parents and teachers!!

Our school usually earns about 50% on whatever they sell so that is why everything costs so much. If it were not for the fundraisers the children at school would not have any of the extra things that the PTA does. It would be great if they could just ask each parent to donate a certain amount of money and there would be no fundraisers but I'm afraid that not many would not do it. There are always the same people that give of their time and or money and those who want everything but don't do anything. I did not understand how much the kids benifit from a good PTA until I sat in on a board meeting. After that I don't complain very much because now I understand.

Why? What does that teach the students

Our elementary school did all that and I didn't like them either. We always participated, though.

Now, the middle school & high school each asks for $25 up front, then no PTA fundraising. I love it because I always spent more than that on the fundraisers.

Each club or organization does their own things, but you only participate in that if you are in it.

On thing I think is really cool at the high school. At all the varsity games, they do this thing called "Split the Pot". You buy raffle tickets - however many you want - or none. Then they call a number at the end of the 3rd quarter and you split the pot with the school. At last nights football game it was $914. Everyone loves it! Last night the cross country team sponsered it, so they made $457 for selling raffle tickets and some mom walked out with $457.

Lisa

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"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"

I would much rather just cut a check at the beginning of the school year...and not deal with any fundraising. My dd attends middle school and I sub at the High School, so we get hammered all the time. I do occasionally buy something (usually overpriced Yankee Candles), but I cannot afford to buy from both schools everytime a fundraiser comes up. I also buy a Christmas wreath every year from the Senior class at the High school to help with their Project Graduation Trip. I realize that the Project Graduation trip depends entirely on fundraising and that they get NO help from the school itself.

OUr kids switched to something completely different this year. Last year we did wrapping paper, candy, cookie dough -- way tooo many. But this year the school said they would be doing only one fundrasier and this fundraiser would take care of the entire school year. It was a huge success. It was called Boosterthon fun run - here's a link: Boosterthon Fun Run

It got the kids active and motivated and only ONE fundraiser. I think the school made about $60k -

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Here in CA schools can no longer sell chocolate/candy due to a new nutrition law that pertains to schools & childhood obesity. It has made fundraising particulary tough at the high school level. Those $1 candy bars we the biggest fundrasier - someone was always selling them. Our sports teams & clubs are now scrambling to find things to sell that are easy, popular and profitable.

Unfortunately in our district we aren't allowed to ask parents to make a straight donation instead of having a fundraiser. The "powers that be" think it puts too much pressure on the parents to give money they don't have. But it's ok to send home a catalog filled with overpriced gunk that we only make 50% on - go figure

That's my point too. My family doesn't participate in the car wash. They started it about 2 or 3 years ago and I'm not sure how successful it is. I've heard this year their smart card sales are really down and those are usually a pretty big fundraiser for the school. So with the economy the way it is, I'm thinking most people won't want to spend the gas to go to school for a $5 car wash. JMO, tho!

When my oldest DS was in first grade in public school, I was very surprised at all the requests for money that came home. It seemed like every day there was some kind of requests. I learned very quickly that there was no way I could contribute to everything, so now I pick and choose.

I always pay for fieldtrips, although it bothers me that even if you don't pay, your child still gets to go. Our PTA has a $50 membership that means you don't have to do any of their fundraisers. I always join at that level because you get a free piece of Spirit Wear and a discount coupon for the yearbook.

I almost always donate to my kids classroom teachers off their wish lists. I try to pick something on sale/clearance, etc. and send that in so I'm not spending a ton of money.

Otherwise, I try to give of my time, volunteering at the school or helping in other ways. If I gave money every time they asked, I would be broke!

Sarah..........mom to Jason & Devin

I have seen some fundraisers for schools or organizations, in the grocery stores that I shop in around town. The school or group apparently collects coupon inserts and cuts out the coupons. They print a small label that says something like "Please donate the proceeds from this coupon to XXX school". The sticky label is used to attach the coupon to the product. When someone purchases the product at the checkout, they are asked if they want to donate the proceeds to the school or group. The coupon amount is then credited to the fundraiser school. Shoppers don't seem to mind, since they were going to buy the product anyway.

I am not sure how the store handles the paperwork or accounting for this type of fundraiser, but being a coupon person, I always notice when one of the stores is doing this.

I am a teacher, and I chaired our PTO fundraiser for many years. We hold one fundraiser per year, and I stay involved with it because I can see how necessary it is to our students. We have a pizza and gift sale in the fall that has a net profit of $20-$25,000. The PTO uses that money to fund scholarships, school supplies for needy students, field trips, various dances, fun nights for students, student participation in various conferences for DECA, Student Senate, etc., teacher grants for new ideas for the classrooms - and the list goes on. I take a very personal interest in the fundraiser because the results affect the educational experience for my children. Asking for a $20 donation is fine (and we do accept that if a family wishes to participate in that way), but we would need $20 from every child - no exceptions - to even come near to the same results.

My son started out with fundraisers in PRESCHOOL...

I hate them. For the past 6 or 7 years the only fundraiser I have allowed him to do was the Boy Scout popcorn sale. Any fundraiser that came home from school was tossed. You can burn out the neighbors and relatives just so much, and we had to sell that da*m popcorn - I was the chairperson up until this year.

I donate so much to the school and always have, especially my time. The fundraiser I hated the most was the magazines in grade school - they hyped up the kids so much and if they didn't bring back 10 postcards with people's information filled out they were pretty much big losers. I hated buying those overpriced magazines - especially since now I get a lot of them for free or less then $3/yr.

The band is going to Hawaii in March, and I told my son upfront that we were not going to do any fundraisers. This is a really expensive trip, and we are both going - me as a chaperone. We had a huge thrift sale this summer and made $4,000 and paid off both our trips. We both had to work for that money and it really paid off. I have taught him how to coupon and stockpile, and how to sell the things we don't need to pay for other things. I sometimes think the schools need to learn couponing.

One of the local elementary schools does just one big fund raiser a year, a big spring carnival.

They have all kinds of games, raffles, food booths, crafts, etc. All the work is done by volunteers and it's held in the school gym so the only real costs are the food/prizes and a lot of that is donated by local businesses and others.

It's a huge deal, open to the public and rasises a TON of money from what I understand.

Why more schools don't put the time/effort into doing just one big thing? It seems to me it would be less work/bother in the long run and would yield more profit.

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Jesus SAVES by shopping smartly and using double coupons!

This will be my first year out of fundraiser hell as my youngest is now in a private high school. We still have raffle tickets for scholarship drive that he has to sell, but no more $8 rolls of wrapping paper, tubs of cookie mix, magazines, etc, etc. I guess they figure that $10k in tuition should save the parents from that, LOL. However, before reaching this milestone, I had stopped doing the fundraisers. I just wrote a check at the beginning of the year and sent it in with a note explaining that I was opting myself out of fundraisers. That way the school got the full benefit of my donation, not some measly portion thereof. My kids learned earlier on with the participation prizes that if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was.

cj/

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips

I didn't read all the responses but 99.9% of them I HATE and do not participate in. We got the first one one week after school started. They complain they don't have enough class time but the whole school spent 2 hours in the gym hearing about the fundraiser. Then my kids are pissed at me because I won't let them try to sell the crap in the mags.

We do have one going on now that I like. There is a shopping area in town and from Sept-Nov, if you take your receipt into the mgmt office, they will mark down what you spent and what school you want to give credit too. At the end of the school with most $$$ marked down gets like $5K for their school. It's nice because extended family can drop by and give our school credit as well.

I like the school carnival....that's fine and fun. I would rather do a school cookbook with contributed recipes than the stupid catalog crap but all the school officials seem to like the crap

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

I must say, that I really do not enjoy the Boy Scout popcorn sales. Their products, while being tasty, are so over-priced. If I am heading into Walmart, and I see your cute kid, in his really cute uniform, I don't usually have an extra $20-$30 in my pocket to buy any of the products they are offering, and then I feel bad. It's SO much easier to fork over the $3.50 for a box of Girl Scout cookies. Yes, the cookies are overpriced as well, but a lot easier on the pocketbook when you encounter so many kids selling so many things.

I had 3 kids in private school. The PTO fundraisers never stopped! The school has a big benefit auction every year that raises about $80,000. It's a fancy, expensive dinner, gala auction. Of course me and my big mouth complained that they should have a "family night" auction, one that was free to go to. My thinking was that people like my brother would go to a free casual one and probably spend lots of money, but wouldn't fork over the $50/person to go to the Gala night auction. Well, yep, you guessed it. I ended up chairing the Family Night Auction for the last 5 years. The 6th grade goes to camp every year and they need to raise money for that. So they now do a carnival and food downstairs for the kids on the same night. They have been able to do away with all there other fundraises for that now. They make enough in that one night to pay for camp. Something kind of funny, 2 years ago we got a new family that owns a tavern. They donated a keg and we bought a couple cases of wine. That was the first year we served alcohol and we doubled our profit from the year before. So yeah, alcohol is good. LOL!

I've been involoved with the PTO too. I've tried so hard to get them to move away from catalog sales types of fundraisers. It's overpriced crap and the only ones making money are the companies doing them. I always encourage the ice cream social or spaghetti dinner or even car washes. They are almost pure profit, over and done with in one day and serve a double purpose in being a nice community event as well. Another good one the 8th graders at the school have done is babysitting and gift wrapping. You can drop off your kids one day in Dec. while you go shopping. A few days later they offer giftwrapping. I don't mind paying for that at all. . .it's a great service. One more to consider is SCRIP. My friend is the SCRIP coordinator and schools can really do well with it, if people get used to using it. It's just a program where you order gift cards and the school gets a small percentage of the amount. It's money that people are going to spend anyway. I would always buy Fred Meyer and McDonald's. Some people are really good at it. . .buying all there grocery, gas, you name it in SCRIP.

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"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

A few more I just thought of.

The PTO does a Bunko night once every other month. It's a $10 buy in to play. The winner gets $75 in SCRIP and the biggest loser gets $25 in SCRIP. It's a lot of fun too. Because it's a private school and we do it at the church hall, it's a BYOB too.

One that the church does is a chili cookoff. It costs $5 to enter your chili, and then they charge like $3 I think for tasting to people that come. They have judges and a people's choice award. I don't remember what the winners get. . .just a donated prize, it's mostly about the bragging rights. LOL. The school choir sings and the kids do a talent show. It's a fun time.

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"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

We had a different kind of fund raiser this year. There is a gentleman that has kids at our elementary and high school. He works with country music singers and put together a concert with Collin Raye for tomorrow night. Tickets were $20 each. I am anxious to find out if this is going to work or not. They have really been doing alot of advertising on radio and TV. It all goes to our elementary school. They are trying not to nickel and dime us, too. He said if this is a success, then we ould have to have any more fundraisers for the rest of the year. Crossing fingers!

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NSDQ-Nightstalkers Don't Quit!

Our basketball team does a shoot-a-thon and volleyball does a serve-a-thon; they collect pledges based on how many baskets or serves they make in an hour. Pure profit - we have four teams in each sport so there are about 40 or 50 kids who play basketball and another 40 or 50 who play volleyball. They get about $10 to $20 from each parent or whoever signs up to pledge $.
We also have a silent auction with items donated by parents/staff, and local businesses- gift cards, baskets etc, that is also pure profit.

Maybe I'm not like anyone here but I loveeee fundraisers! Growing up my parents would take it to work with them and I'd always sell alot. I don't feel like i'm pressuring anyone into buying because if they dont want to buy then thats fine, it's there for ppl to get the opportunity to buy if they want. I keep waiting for the day when my DD brings home fundraisers.

I do not like fundraisers. My husband has a rule at work when it comes to fundraising ~Don't Ask Me To Buy and I Won't Ask You.
I have started donating a flat amount to school instead of buying something that I do not want. Heck, if I am going to buy $14's worth of paper from Sally Foster and the school only gets $7 then I would rather give the school $14.
At our old school we had to write out a $100 check (in December) and then sell the coupons at $10 each and got to keep the money. ARG~did I go round and round with the Athletic Director on that one.

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GO BEARS!!
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My kids are grown but the neighbors have 3 kids - all of who come over with the overpriced wrapping paper. When they sell magazines, I don't mind because they are a pretty good price and I usually get/renew a couple - All you, Good housekeeping, Readers Digest - Magazines I like anyway.

We have a woman I work with whose daughter is a Girl Scout. She brings in the paperwork and leaves it on her counter for people to purchase if they want - she does not press it. They now sell candy/nuts besides the cookies - 2 different fund raisers.

I do not buy from people coming to the house - I just politely tell them thank you, but I have "relatives" I buy from.

Now that my Grandson is in pre-school, what did he bring home a couple of weeks ago - Forms to sell Yankee Candles - he's 4 ! Yikes already !!!

Dianne

My DS got his first fundraiser form when he was 3 months old. Our day care center (which I paid dearly for him to be in) did those crappy fundraisers. I threw those away. We have the Attractions Coupon Books that sell for $25 and the school keeps $10 profit from each. I liked that one - the coupons were for local restaurants, stores,etc. It usually included some chains as well. They were always worth the $25.

I worked for a wireless phone comapny for a year. They had a program where if you (the employee) would volunteer 50 hours in a year at a non-profit or school they would give the organziation a $500 unrestricted grant. I did that when DS was in 2nd grade. I wish more employers would do something like that.

Whats worse is when you have kids and people with kids doing the same fundraiser bring them to your door. So you either feel terrible saying no or buy something else.

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Without Health you have no Wealth!

I do have to mention that there is ONE, and only ONE fundraiser that I enjoy. It's those organizations that deliver hot, fresh Krispy Kreme donuts early Sat., a.m. We are about 25 mins. away from Krispy Kreme. I'll gladly pay $6 any weekend to get breakfast delivered to our masses.

Sam's Club does that for its employees only its 25 hours and $250. I am not a Sam's Club employee but I help at a nonprofit and love when one of them comes through our door. Times are VERY tough for nonprofits.

I too dislike schhol fundraisers! My son goes to private school and there are many fundraising activities throughout the year!! The first day of school they sent home a flyer for the school "Hootanany"(sp). They had a silent auction which local businesses donated items, but they also told the children that if their parents bought tickets they would get a NUT(no uniform today) pass. So of course, my ds begged us to go, we are not able to pay $20.00 per ticket, then pay for food, then do the silent auction, at the end of the night, its close to $100.00 for the night!! Hello, do they not understand that that is a week or more of groceries for us??? I understand that the school needs money, but they dont understand in this economy, most middle class families are struggling just to pay the household bills!!!
I do participate in certain fundraisers, because it is mandatory or you will have to pay $250.00 at the end of the year if you dont participate.

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The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand, is when I carried you - Mary Stevenson

I hear you.. My baby is now in college but we have 9 grandchildren and 1 on the way. So it will get expensive. So far we have been lucky and only 1 hits us up. (they are not all in school yet) But I still owe some of the neighborhood kids. Thier parents bought from my dd when she was younger so I feel obligated to buy from them. I did just buy cookie dough for $15 precut ready to bake. I could of got the same amount of cookies at the grocery with coupons for about $4. I really wisht they would just stick to the candy bars for $1. That way I could spend $1 or $2 and not pay $12 to $15 for overpriced things I really dont want.