You have to go with costume jewelry in order to keep the prices low. Plus no one can expect their kid to come home with a great piece of fancy jewelry for $2-$3. We usually do both holiday and non holiday costume Jewelry (bracelets, necklaces, rings, & pins). We get a lot of our costume Jewelry from a place called accessories palace. www.accessoriespalace.com
They have really nice pins there that say Mom or Grandma on them as well as a ton of other costume jewelry pieces.
Oh I thought of one more question to ask? If you buy jewlery is costume ok. For instance something that says silver but it may not really be (charm braclet)??? :confused:
Wow you all have been such a great help. Now I guess I will start the whole idea building on what to buy. Looks like I got a bunch of stuff to do. Thanks for the tidbits
We make a decent profit on our holiday store, but like Closetwriter just noted it all goes back to the kids one way or another whether it pays for classroom supplies, class trips, assemblies, or the end of the year carnival.
We got into doing our own store so that we could give the money back to them. When you use a business to front your store they are making all the money and you would get a pittance compared to their take. Everyone would say "Well it is not a fundraiser, but rather a service for the kids." But the bottom line was it was a fundraiser, just a poor one. Becuase you did make money at it and someone elses pockets were getting lined.
Now by doing our own store we also are saving the parents money as our prices are much better. There are items I sell for $1.50 that the businesses would come in and sell for $3. So this way the parents are spending less & the PTO is still raising money to give back to the kids.
All the above ideas are great and we do several of them. Ask the teachers about what they know about their students, i.e., are they from single families, do the kids talk about siblings, cousins, grandparents, etc. They usually know more then anyone else.
This past year we took $100 and 10 kids (2 from each grade) that the teachers knew had not been to the Santa Shoppe and did not have any money to spend, and gave them a shopping spree. Boy, were the kids suprised! One little boy was crying the whole time saying he couldn't take anything because he didn't have any money and we couldn't convince him that he didn't have to pay for it.
We don't don't make a profit of much so to speak, it's just a fun thing for the kids.
