I am in the middle of putting together a carnival only I have until Sept. 4th to pull it off. We have combined it with a hog roast and beef roast both of which are being donated by local ranchers. We had talked about many other items to combine with the carnival, but have scaled back as it will be the first year for carnival and we don't want to run it from 10am until 8pm. We are going to set up sales booths in the gym as well as carnival games in the outside field. From bake sales inside to local venders from Mary-K and the like giving a portion of sales to the school, it should help to boost profit.

I just attended a Health Fair/Bike Rodeo that our PTA had today. It turned out to be a huge event! They had several booths, a bike rodeo/pedestrian and bike safety course and etc. They put it on with a grant that they received from the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety but they could have easily had charged for booth space and even tickets for other things and kept the main attraction (the bike rodeo) free as a draw. (We have an extremely successful fundraiser at the beginning of the year and we didn't need any money really)
The biggest part of the success was that it was televised from a partnering TV station and flyers went out to ALL the schools via school mail. I ran into parents from several different schools and even one from California (two hour drive) who saw it on the news.
If you open it up to the public and advertise it like crazy, then the number of parents in your school won't matter. "If you build it, they will come" (pretty cheesy huh? [img]smile.gif[/img] )
Another unit under me did a "Cheap Night Out" recently and served spaghetti and bread (donated) and charged $12 for a family of four. they had an auction and also free carnival games but again, opened it up to the public. People attending didn't see it as giving money to a school but having a nice inexpensive dinner and a little entertainment and the school wins!

[ 03-21-2004, 01:59 AM: Message edited by: Michelle B ]

You could have area businesses to sit up booths for a fee. They could do their own games, balloon animals, or just give away samples of their products. This thought just occured. That is how our FRC does our "Back to School Bash" They sometimes get the 4H or FFA to bring in animals and have pony rides.

Does it have to be a carnival? You might be able to rally the parents and community if it was for a good cause, but what would the money be for? I'm not experienced at all with this stuff, but personally, I think a carnival sounds like a LOT of work for minimal returns. It's more a fun thing to do rather than a fund-raiser.

We're looking at large money-makers for our playground fund. We want to have as few fund-raisers as possible to keep the town and parents from burning out on our asking for money. Like I said, the reason for the money is the crux of the siutation. Is it something they could get a grant for? If you can get people behind it, you could suggest things like a walk-a-thon (you could do it through an organizer if you don't have the resources to chase down the money), depending on where you are and what your space resources are you could look at "Yankee Doodle Circus," a Tricky Tray is another idea. I guess the question of what the money is for would have to be answered first before you could take a course of action.

We have a Spring Fling. It is just in the day for the kids, we usually profit about $1200.00. You could have something like that and perhaps add a supper with it, maybe get something to raffel off, or have a talent show along with it. That may get more of the community to come. You may even find a parent willing to be a clown and have a local business to donate some balloons you could air up and give out lollipops.

We're also a small school, 150+ students, and our carnival usually nets about $3000 without a lot of effort and charging nominal fees for food, admission, and games. We have the usual games, a moonwalk, food/drinks, and entertainment at the end in the form of the teachers who perform a lip-sync spoof of some band. I know that $3000 doesn't sound like much, but if we were in the US we could do so much more. Try the carnival and see how it works out.

When does the school need the funds? If you have through the summer what about school supply sales. Do these make any money???