This is my second year as PTO President. Last year, I had a local funeral home print Thanksgiving raffle tickets for free. Three lucky winners received gift cards to our local grocery store. The raffle profited $1,200.
You could also get boosters printed (hopefully for free) and sell them for a dollar a piece. This could profit several hundred dollars.
If you have a Walmart near you do a bake sale / raffle and applpy for a matching grant. We did one and made $215.00 they are to match it with $215.00 but instead sent us a check for $500.00 this is to start our school year for 2006-2007. Not bade what to start the summer off for next year. Good Luck. Does anyone know who i get a 501 3c for tax exemption I'm in New Hampshire.
Our school also is only of 88 students. We cant even get our Princible or teachers involed but when they need money for something they come asking for HELP!
Paula (small town sprit) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
We're a small school too - 125 students (K-2). We recently ran a raffle for a pair of Red Sox vs. Yankees game (tickets were donated by a parent). The raffle tickets sold for $5 each and we made $6,000. Obviously, the ongoing Red Sox/Yankee battle and Johnny Damon's defection to the "enemy" team helped with the success of our raffle. We would have been lucky to get $500 for these tickets if we had put them in our silent auction. All you need to do is find one really good prize and get the students, teachers and parents excited about the raffle. The parents who donated our tickets went all out - they set up "Wally the Green Monster" in our main hallway. They even came into the school during lunch time dressed in Red Sox & Yankee uniforms to get everyone excited. It was a great event, and very easy, considering the returns.
Some of the better selling items at our auctions are the ones that the kids make. We have each classroom donate either a themed basket or some sort of art project. For instance, we had a classroom make a quilt. Each child in the room made a square and a mom sewed it all together. For younger grades the projects with the children's hand prints, or thumbprints always are a huge sellers. Also we always go to our local fire and police depts. and get a ride along with our home town hero's. I've posted this idea before because it is one that is geared towards the dads. Another idea is to look through your local phone book, to get ideas. We've found that by calling local companies to request donations we did much better. Also a huge hit, is principal for the day (boy and girl) or Gym teacher for the day, (boy and girl). We run side boards and 50/50 raffles throughout the entire evening of the auction. This year we tried selling raffle tickets at $20.00 each. BUT the grand prize was a year's worth of free tuition. It was awesome! Almost every parent in the school bought one per child. As far as the hall and meal, we hired out to a catering company. The tickets were 28.50 a person. With the purchase of tickets for the evening, we gave 2 free drink tickets. Then had a cash bar for those who wanted to drink more than 2. We worked with a local beer company and got a great price on the alcohol. This was our 7th annual auction. We have 281 students in the school and after expenses we made $28,000.00. I am very proud of our Silent Auctions committee, they worked very hard. I guess I should mention that our Auction is in April. Our committee is set up
at the September PTO meeting,they have monthly meetings for Sept.Aug.and Nov. But starting in December they start meeting weekly. The last 4 weeks it is almost a full time job for the committee. Lots of work, but the profit is there.
I'm also a new president and am looking for help in starting an auction for next year. If anyone has a how to file, or dos and don'ts that they'd be willing to share, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks Tina This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Tina
