One of the elementary schools in our township does this. They call it Change Wars and instead of bomb they say zap lol. They run it for 1 week and let the kids do it in the morning before school and halfway threw the day. They make about 1000 bucks off it.

We are currently running a "Spare Change Drive" with moderate success (approx $1,500 in 6 weeks). We sent a flyer explaining how it worked, and now on Fridays we collect the "change," total it and make a poster declaring a winner for each week. We also give an info sheet with all the class' totals so the kids can see where their class is. If our administration and staff were more supportive, it would have been phenomenal. We can see which teachers are supportive of our efforts just by looking at the totals--the teachers that remind the kids to bring in the money and talk up helping the playground have--SURPRISE!--the highest totals.

We toyed with the Penny War idea, but felt in our school it wouldn't fly--as it is with our Spare Change Drive we're getting flak!! We aren't allowed to post the weekly class totals chart in the hallway--too much pressure on "teachers." Hurt feelings, kids potentially doing crazy/"bad" things to get money and all that nonsense. I mean--we're talking about change here, a dollar at most! One teacher at first wasn't too supportive, but now she's on board--she told her class if they win, for the rest of the year they get two "homework-free" nights/week! BUT--if they bring in more than a dollar they have to have a note from home explaining where the money came from, preferably having earned it! The notes we've been receiving are just to die for! Some of these kids are beyond generous, and they have really made an impression on us.

We figured if every kid brought in at least a dollar's worth of pocket change during the week (and that's very easy to do if you remember to throw a few cents in your kid's knapsack every day) we would've raised almsot $5,000 by now (our K-5 has approx. 350). BUT--reminders are out, be they flyers or announcements--that would be telling people we expected children to empty their piggy banks, or that we were shaking down the parents. UGH-I sound just a little bitter don't I? When I hear how supportive other schools are to their PTO/PTAs efforts I'm so jealous!

[ 05-18-2004, 10:17 PM: Message edited by: kmamom ]

I have done this at a yearly convention to vote for a mascot for that year. We had about 3-4 hours of "voting." Each cent was a vote. There wasn't the option to "bomb" but I bet that would have gone over very well. We earned $200 in 3-4 hours and it was a lot of fun.

I imagine doing this over a week would collect quite a bit.

Had a request at the Philly conference to write this up on the forum. Neat idea for a fun (and often surprisingly successful) fundraiser:

Penny Wars

Each classroom or grade gets its own large jug (empties from the water cooler are perfect).

The goal is to be the class (or grade) with the most points at the end of the war (maybe one week or two weeks).

You get points by putting copper (pennies) into your jug. Each penny is worth one point for your team.

However, other teams can "bomb" your jug by putting silver (nickels, dimes, quarters) or paper (bills) into your jug. Face value of silver and paper is DEDUCTED from your total (though, of course, all of the money eventually helps your PTO).

Providing daily standings updates is key, because as the event gains steam, the bombings become key. One teams 500 point lead can be immediately erased by a $5 contribution (bomb)into that team's bucket.

There's tons of variations on this. I hope others will chime in with how you do it and how much you've made in past Wars..

Tim