I had worked at our holiday shop for a couple of years, but this year, ran the whole show. In the past, a consignment company was used and it was done as a service, not a fundraiser. I hated to see the fundraising company making the money instead of our school after we did all the work, so I used a company called Frank Maurone Company (
www.maurone.com
)this year and we made $1,260. Our school is K-8 with almost 600 students. Another officer and I selected the items which we thought would be popular, reserved our items in October, had them delivered just before Thanksgiving, held the sale December 8 - 11, and paid for the items within 15 days after that. Overall, I thought it was a big success, but we did run low on some items by the end of the week because we ordered conservatively since it was our first year. Frank was very helpful and I had a very good experience with his company. A word of warning if you go to check out his site: he does not have a huge selection, especially at this time of year. He adds things as the holiday season gets closer. His prices are very good. We were able to set prices we felt were reasonable. The prices ranged from $.25 to $5.00. We have a small box of leftover items we will be able to use again next year which are already paid for.
So we went from breaking even to making a good sum of money for just a little bit more work. It was a lot of fun and I'm already looking forward to next year.
