I'm new here, and so far I am really enjoying all the shared information.
We are planning a Holiday Shoppe this year and will be using a local company called Gifts Galore. We also have a small percentage of our students who are lower-income. What we decided to do was to give all students a small gift in a gift bag when they come to do their shopping. The company provides holiday-themed gift bags as part of the package, so we will be giving out one of the lower-priced items, in a sealed bag, to every student. Those who bring their own money will have more, but at least every child will have at least one gift bag. The cost of giving every child an item will be less than $100, which we feel is money worth spending out of whatever we earn. This is a fundraiser, but it's also a fun and useful thing to provide for the kids, so raising big bucks isn't the primary goal. Our Shoppe will only be open for one day, with classes scheduled for time slots. Items will be displayed by price range, and volunteers will assist with selections. Gift bags have printed on labels, so they only need to be taped closed. We are looking forward to a quick, fun, event for everyone.
We do a Holiday Shop. We don't do it as a fundraiser, just as a service project. We purchase merchandise and sell it at cost. We set up in the gym, and seperate by catagories: Mom, Dad, sister, pet, babies, brothers, sister, etc. We have all of our stock under the tables so it is easy to restock as the day goes on. :eek:
I just love the Santa's Shop we do it ever year at our school. We have tried diffent companies but we like doing it all ourselves, but we have tons of help! We shop all year round for all the clearances, after ever holiday we look for things like Mother's Day, Father's Day etc. Everything in the store is under $5.00 And last year we started a new thing where I took a Dollar bill from the teacher's store and cut out a picture of our principal and put his smiling face on it and we called it Marshall Money (after our school) and the PTO gave every child $1.00 so that no child would go home without something. We have shopped everywhere from the Dollar Store to JC Penney's. We even hit a big tent sale last year at the local K-Mart and they let us have anything is the tent for 90% off the clearance price. We also had someone donate a tree and decorations which we used to decorate and we used the Marshall Money with each child's name on it to pick a winner for the tree. The principal told us a family who didn't have a tree and they won SHHHH! But the family was so tickled to have the tree we are going to do it again this year!
Our first year in our school-2 years ago-the PTA used a certain co. already mentioned here and it was cheesy. Last year we decided to buy our own gifts from Oriental Traders and dollar store wholesalers (an advantage of living in this area; there are several of these here) and the response was overwhelming. Everyone was impressed with our selection, we had to go buy more stuff everyday b/c we kept running out and we had bought quite a bit to begin with, teachers and parents kept coming in to do shopping as well, we even ended up pulling stuff we had left over from our spring fair as prizes and selling it.
One thing that was surprising was that even though we have a lot of low income families, even the $10 items that we had bought conservatively sold out in no time.
This year we planned on doing the same thing but we didn't have any more gift bags, etc. so we were looking around for a place to get them inexpensively. We discovered the co. we are using for our fundraiser also has a Holiday Shop program so we contacted them (same co. we used last year-they are terrific!) and asked if we would have to sign an exclusive contract saying we could only sell their stuff in our shop and they said no, so we'll get the bags, tablecloths, etc., still be able to supplement their selection with our own stuff and whatever we don't sell from them we can send back. A total win-win situation! Plus, once we've done the fundraiser and the Holiday Shop through them they'll donate $500 in books to our Media Center! I just love these folks!
Just my 2 cents. We've done a Holiday Shop for several years and Two year ago we took it out of school time. One reason was because of teacher dissatifaction. We do not have many kids that are poor but we have a lot of parents that think nothing of giving their kids $20 or more and just letting them buy whatever they wanted. So those kids would buy stuff for themselves and perhaps some family members and then come back to the classroom with a bag filled with stuff. And some parents would rather shop with their kids so wouldn't give them anything... Anyway, it just seemed an inappropriate use of school time to many of us. We didn't want to give it up altogether though, so we had it a couple of times after school, on a Saturday morning and just before our annual Holiday party. Guess what- we made more money because parents had to come in and shop with their kids! This year we've scheduled it for just before the Holiday party and a Saturday morning. We also had some homemade craft items that we're donated and the fifth grade made snowflake ornaments. Those things sold out. Good luck!
We also have a parent that shops all year long. The only problem with it, is sometimes she under shops and runs out of the "good stuff" early. But every year she has increased her shopping and as PTO President I have convienced her to shop more.
We do not use our "Shop" as a fundraiser. If we break even then we're doing good.
As far as Oriental Trading, we have in Rhode Island a Warehouse distributor called Rhode Island Novelty. They have a web site www.rhodeislandnovelty.com/
there prices are pretty good. I don't have to pay shipping because we are able to just pick up our orders, but they have some of the better per piece prices than most sites.
