Since a majority of the kids in my school are low income, I know where you're coming from. I know that since a we have such a large majority, that the "raffle" wouldn't work, but in the past we have covered the difference for a lot of the kids. Usually out of our own pockets. Several of us usually bring in all our spare change and then add to the remaining total of the kids. They don't realize we are doing this. What a certain member of our exec. board fails to realize is that this isnt really a fundraiser. It's a way for the kids to shop without having their family around, and it's all cheap. THAT'S the reason we do it.
This year I "negotiated" $200 in "monopoly" money from our vendor to distribute as you indicated you did - we have random winners. My board says that we cannot do it that way, if we have a raffle we have a raffle, but we can't "fix" it. I disagree. My kids would be fine, but I really feel for kids in our school who won't be able to participate because of their economic status. I would appreciate comments from folks who have handled this in the past and how so that I can bring it up again.
Our school used to do a Santa Shopper store at the holidays but because of the disparity in income levels at our school(some came with lots of $ others with none)we went to a craft days program. The PTO sponsors the program which consists of volunteers coming up with simple, age appropriate craft projects, buying the supplies to make the crafts and setting up days and times where the children come to the cafeteria and make the crafts. The kids love making the gifts themselves, the recipients love getting these very special gifts, and it eliminates the income disparity problems. We ask for each child to pay $1 to help cover costs(it only covers about 1/4 of what we spend). If anyone wants details, let me know.
This is our 3rd year using Kidsmart Holiday Shop. They have been wonderful. This last year, we marked up the merchandise, just a little bit, and made gift certificates up and gave them to all the kids in need. I had the office and the teachers make a list up and then asked the school sec. to help me decide where to draw the line on who got them and who did not. I then went to each classroom and announced that we had a random drawing and these are the winners from your class. This way no one knew that only certian kids got them and by not announcing the winners to the entire school, the kids could not know that whole families of children received them. It worked great, in fact we sold out of merchandise, twice and had to hold over the shop for an extra week so everyone could shop.
We too have many low income students in our school. That is why we went with Holiday shoppe this year. We had done Fun Services in the past, but were not pleased. The merchandise was over priced and it looked cheap. I had considered asking the board to try to Dollar Tree, but didn't think it would work since most of the executive board members work, or are too "busy" to show up at a meeting. We have very little attendence at general meetings, so asking the parents to help was out of the question. There are 2 of us on the board that end up doing everything, so that is why we are going with a company.
Our school use to go with a local company. Two years ago, we decided to go to our local "Family Tree" Dollar Store. Everything in the store costs $1.
We have now set up business with them on a yearly basis. We buy things that we feel our children would purchase for their families. If something does not sell we can return the merchandise.
We do not make a profit from the gifts for the children. The cost is $1.05 per gift.
Some of the things we have had in our shop are christmas decorations, snowmen and angel figurines, toys, crayons, markers, tools, pot holders, hand towels, umbrellas, pins, and magnets, etc. just to name a few.
Our school has many lower income families and using the dollar store instead of the other companies that the gifts cost betweem $1 tp $10 has been a great thing for us.
