I'm curious about what is common in your area for fundraising for the Senior class. In ours there are two big events:

Prom - class officers, supervised by a faculty sponsor, organize fundraising starting their Freshman year and throughout all 4 years of high school to pay for prom. The goal seems to be $15,000-$20,000 which goes towards space (nice hotel), live band, decorations, and food. Even with that much raised, I think the tickets are still about $60 each. On the plus side, the kids do learn alot about raising money, budgeting, planning, etc. On the minus side - this just seems like a LOT of effort over 4 years (car washes, catalog sales, bake sales, sponsoring sports tournaments). And it's only a tiny percentage of the students that do the work.

Graduation Lock-in- This is a huge overnight lock-in the night of graduation with entertainment, food, tons of doorprizes (everyone gets gift cards, there are TV's, laptops, stereos, IPODs...) This fundraising is handled by a parent committee - again throughout all four years of high school - and the school has nothing to do with it other than school space is used for the event itself. In recent years the amounts raised have been $28,000-$35,000 (total).

I have a junior and a freshman this year, so I'm familiar with the plans. At the freshman parent meeting, they were really pushing the Graduation committee to get formed now and start their efforts.

These are long-held traditions in our school. I think the senior class is usually about 400 students and our school is by no means a wealthy one.

I have very mixed feelings about the 4 years of fundraising for these 2 groups. And, of course, our campus has all the regular fundraising for athletics, band, theatre arts, PTA, a multitude of clubs, and the school itself.

I'd be very interested in hearing from others as to if you have these same efforts.