I was thinking of changing the times to coincide with the kids getting out of school and parents getting out of work. Maybe 3pm- 6:30pm would work better.

I know some parents can't make it but we had 1/4 of the stuff left and that is just crazy to me. It was candles too so I don't feel comfortable sending those home with K-2 graders.

I was thinking about the food thing too. Alot of parents want us to do a food fundraiser. Now I know why its never been done.

Cindy

Thanks for all the ideas.

Our fall fund raiser pick-up was yesterday, scheduled from 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM in the gym. A notice when home two days before, and an email went out the day before pick-up. Parents actually picked up orders from 2:30 - 6:30 PM. Our order was delivered by the company at 1:00 PM, so that was no problem. FYI: Our school lets out at 3:30 PM (Kindergarten 3:20 PM). We started making reminder calls to parents at 5:00 PM.

About 80% of our parents and students turned out for pick-up. Some 5th grade kids tried to pick-up their order and missed the bus - that was a problem. Next year we'll announce that kids who are suppose to pick-up their order can come down at 3:00 PM from their classrooms. One dad picked-up his order and went off on us saying how inconvenient it was that he had to come to the school. No amount of reasoning helped this situation.

Today is our school's harvest parties. This AM we took the orders to the classrooms knowing that many parents would be dropping off goodies. Our teachers are really good about letting students call mom to say "Mom, I have this big fund raiser box. Please come get me from school so that I don't have to walk home with it."

Best of Luck With Your Fundraisers! Tammy

I have been doing fundraiser pickup for several years. We never have more than 55% show up for the main time. (This is the main reason why we don't do food sales.) We usually offer an alternate date and time, becasue we understand people work or forget. If that doesn't work, then we try to send them home if they aren't too big or heavy. We do have some families with transportation problems, so sometimes we will deliver stuff because we don't want them to quit fundraising because of it. I think I was very frustrated my first two years because I felt like these peole were just plain irresponsible, now I just accept that that's the way it is and do my best to plan for it because that is the way it is.

We send home a notice to each child that sells a product. If a parent can't come that time we ask them to try to make arrangements to have someone do it. From there any orders left get put in our principal's office, we will call and remind them but unless it is small enough to go home on the bus (with their permission) then they need to make arrangements. It is no different than placing an order at a store a for a special part, that store is a specialty store and have short hours. Realistically there is only so much we can do, have a pick up night, offer to do another after a meeting, and other than deliver them (kidding).

Well last night was our fundraiser pick up which ran quite smoothly.
BAD thing though is we had tons of no shows and about 1/4 of the stuff wasnt picked up.
How do you avoid having all this extra work and that the parents pick up there stuff? I have been getting calls from parents wanting to pick up at this time and that time. I cant do it at night, can't do it during the day.
We send out enough notices what else.
OUR PTO meeting is Tuesday so I sent a note home to get it AFTER the meeting.

Cindy