Ohio Mom, I have had great fun working with businesses for our school. We always acknowledge their generosity at the event, in our newsletter and no matter how small the donation we consider them a "Partner in Education" We send them a thank you and inform them they have been posted on our web site as a "Partner", we send a copy of our newsletter that has our acknowledgement in it and at the end of the year they receive a nice "Partners in Education" Certificate. I really believe they appreciate it and gladly continue their support!
This is in response to asking local businesses for donations. We have a "Chinese Auction" every year (similar to silent auction, but it's really a raffle).
We get LOTS of donated items & last year before the drawing I made an announcement to those in attendance to keep all these businesses in mind when making purchases & to stop in & thank them for their donations. I was shocked when I stopped by one business the next week to thank the owner & she told me that one of the winners had stopped in to thank her! The winner even told her that she was told to stop by & thank her. I was impressed!! sometimes people do listen!
I know businesses are constantly asked for donations and can't contribute to every event, but schools are sometimes limited by the school district as to who they can do business with. I think it's important for business owners to realize that they get business from the parents, teachers and staff, too. I know parents who won't shop at businesses if they don't contribute to our fundraisers. Donating a dinner for 2, a boom box or some office supplies just might bring new customers!
As far as carnival games, we've always had great success, with our cake walk, basketball and face painting booths being among our most popular. Our Auction and Silent Auctions do very well, and we also have a raffle with various prizes donated by the community. At our last carnival we rented a bounce house, and the kids loved it!
Good luck!
This is for OhioMom on the response to asking local businesses again and again for their support for various fundraisers...You are so right!!! We all need to reciprocate and support each other, especially in a small town. Thank you for bringing that up, and for reminding us how fortunate we are to get some support from local businesses. I will definitely remember to shop at those places who have supported our school time and time again. Thank you for the business side insight...
FYI, we have held a carnival for years and have a variety of games of varyinhg skill levels. Duck pond, treasure chest, suckerpull, cake walk, hat walk(like a cake walk but you win a cat in the hat - hat), pop ring toss, bucketball etc. The prizes we purchase from novelity comp,(oriental traders etc) We are a small school of 300 students and require a fair no. of people to pull this off. Warning, get the district close code in case of bad weather and you have to postpone. This happened to us just this weekend. I'm on pins and needles to see how it turns out this weekend. I'm thinking later in the spring or in the fall might be a better time to hold it. This is not for the weak of heart to undertake. Good luck
This is in response to the post that you could check with local businesses for donations.
While this is all sounds good, I am on both sides of this issue. I am PTO President for our group, we live in a small town, and my husband and I own an Office Supply Store. Do you realize how many times a month businesses are asked to make a donation to this or purchase an ad to that? It is unreal. One thing that I think most groups, whether they are school related, church related or any other affiliation should do is to ask themselves......Do we support when possible the businesses that we ask to support us. If you are holding a cookout and go out of town to purchase your foods, then I feel that you should go to that store and ask for the donation/contribution. Thankfully for us, our school does do a good bit of business with us. The previous owners would not do much with the school because the school purchased elsewhere. (In which they do have a right to because they are able to purchase thing from school suppliers and get bigger breaks.)
Here is an idea for you that while you are still utilizing businesses, you can obtain some extra help. For our carnival, we asked local businesses, including Papmered Chef, Longaberger, anyone who we knew did business in our town, if they would be willing to work a shift somewhere in our carnival. The ones who did we usually put in one of the classrooms, during the time in which they worked they head free reign to pass out business cards, fliers, pencils, whatever they wanted. This helped us to build a working relationship with them and I think that most actually enjoyed it. We also hung posters throughout the carnival thanking them for their help.
